Mass Effect: The Raven's Raising
by Stilphyell
Summary: Greatly AU. When Nylara used some prothean artifacts her father left her, her destiny was picked by greater powers. This is her story and how she adapted to her future, in a degrading universe. ME1. Shiara later. Rated T for now, maybe M later.
1. Prologue

**Disclaimer: Sadly, I don't own anything except my lil' OC.**

**A/N:** _First of all I want to thank Myetel, for letting me use her turian dictionary and turian colonial markings. (I will use it later on the fic, this first chapters will be centered in some other things)._

_This fic will cover some of Nylara's (My OC) past, as well as how she met with Shepard and all the first game. This fic will be AU in some things but it will keep most of the principal things unchanged, but probably more developed. This is an attempt of novelization, so constructive criticism is GREATLY appreciated. And because this is a novelization It's almost guaranteed that some mistake or bad tense will get through so if you see some please let me now so I can correct it._

_Thanks to TemptingEternity13 for being my beta._

Thats all folks, find some comfortable couch, select some nice music, pick some popcorn and enjoy the fic.

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**2177, Inside a random warehouse in New York's harbor. March 7th. **

"_This is Emilia Carlieu from New York's News, we are here in a part of the area denominated 'crime scene', it seems that this was a terrorist attack, made by one of the local gangs, since an entire mile was blown some hours ago in the middle of the respected Italian neighbourhood with a bomb. _

_The forensics are still trying to analyze the components used in this explosive, but they already have some leads, and they are almost certain that is one of the most dangerous ones controlled by the gangs, the one called Berlin's Hell. The gang that is most known by using it, are the 'Green Irish Leaves', they are known by their bloodthirsty members, however the police are..." _

A shaking hand stopped the rest of the news report from being played in the terminal. A pair of tear stricken eyes bored her gaze in the blackened terminal, lowering her emotional defenses, she felt slowly how despair was winning the battle of her mind, disconnecting her from the outside world. A single sentence was being repeated in her mind _Why did you die daddy?. _

There she was the little thirteen year old girl, whose name was Nylara Whitewind, the daughter of the famous weapon dealer Blas Maglieri and her wife Annabella Whitewind. Since birth, her father insisted that she use her mother's last name, so she could be protected from his line of business.

She has jet black hair, a beautiful pair of dark blue eyes, that matched the color from the deep waters of the ocean. An olive tanned skin, earned by the long hours she spent outside, a well built body that had seen several years of training and her voice had a rare and dashing italian accent, a rare gift since Italia was devastated by the Third World War in 2068 and by a huge tsunami generated by the most powerful earthquake the planet had ever suffered on 2071, a 9.7 Ritcher's earthquake, that reduced the italian population in the world to less than 0.1%. That was why the accent is now such a rare thing and why italian was considered a dead language for at least the last 80 years.

Finally, the battle against her sorrow was lost and a river of tears start falling from her unblinking eyes. She cried, remembering the good times she had with her father, his trustworthy advice and his protective figure. She cried until her eyes closed in exhaustion, giving her a dreamless sleep. When she cracked her eyes open, she scanned her omnitool trying to determine the time of the day while rubbing the tiredness out of her eyes. After she hit the current program, she noticed that she had slept at least fifteen hours and that she was starving.

Nylara decided to start moving through the huge warehouse, trying to determine where the boxes with food were stashed. She was still a bit awed by the huge building her father gifted her to live in for the time being. A wave of sadness hit her like a ram when she remembered the last words her father spoke to her before leaving her here. _"Sweety, stay in this safe warehouse for some time, I have been having some problems with a local gang for a while, and I don't want you to be in danger for the time being. This warehouse and all the items stashed in here are now yours, use it in the way you like and explore it completely, since it has some really nice things that I think you will love. The security system was designed in such a way that it will shoot anything that is not wired to your DNA and you can update it in such a way that you can make other people 'inmune' from the targeting system by uploading the DNA pattern with some specific commands. Stay safe my little girl, and don't fear". _

Sighing to herself, she decided that she would not continue torturing herself remembering her father, and continued looking for something edible when she stopped in her tracks as her eyes gazed something that was standing between two crates.

She started approaching something that from distance seemed to be a rather strange grey mech, but when she was edging closer, she started noticing some other features. A lone eye, a semicircle of what seemed like flexible metal on top of it, pulse weapons strapped in his back and in his mechanical thigh. It finally dawned on her with the strength of a rockslide what the mech _was_. She stood there gaping and with her mouth as dry as the Sahara desert, trying to talk but the only thing she managed was to open and close her mouth like a fish. Finally, she managed to whisper with a low and raspy voice, "A g-geth?... what were you thinking father?"

She was startled when a deep mechanichal voice answered while the only eye lit with it usual glow, "Maglieri Blas was thinking of cooperation between us and also about friendship. One that we enjoyed for the last thirteen years of cooperation. He was the only friend we, the true geth, had ever made. A consensus of peace was achieved between him and us, after we helped him when you were still being programmed by the ones that asumed the roles as your 'parents'."

"Whoa, whoa, wait a second, true geth? Programmed? Consensus? And why are you always talking in plural?"

After a few seconds the voice answered again in the silent walls from the warehouse, "We have reached a consensus and determined that you are allowed to have at least the same level of clearance for our information network as Maglieri Blas. We are true geth. There are two factions amongst the geth. The true ones and the heretic ones. The heretic are serving the Old Machines. These Old Machines are the reason the protheans were terminated 50,000 years ago. After some research we have determined that it wasn't the first time that they have arrived and terminated everything. We have reached a conclusion determining they make a cycle exterminating every sapient being, while hiding between cycles."

"We stated you were programmed, since we have regretfully, low information pertaining to the action designated 'mating' by your people. But the little information we have, states Maglieri Blas, placed an information probe within Whitewind Annabella's firewalls, and expulsed files of data. While most of them were stopped by a superior firewall that had a 99.73% chance of recording them as viruses, a single data process managed to hack the complex defense system and attached to an empty node in the network. There, you started being programmed and after some months of careful calibrations, you passed the test designated 'birth' and started developing in a single mind of your own, receiving extreme physical reconfigurations as time passed, allowing your single unit to 'grow' while you developed internal and external firewalls as well as preparing your body unit to resist hardships by being trained by Maglieri Blas."

When he stopped talking, Nylara was as red as a tomato from of my embarassment. He continued talking without stopping and she silently thanked God, because his neverending chatter allowed me to get my fierce blush under control.

"This is a complex geth unit, with 1183 programs active in it. Normal geth units only have one hundred programs active in them. But since we have 11.83 times the number of active programs, we have 'developed' the ability to talk with organics, understand them and lately learn from them. As for why we reach consensus, it is because we are connected to server hubs and since we are all geth, we need the acknowledgement from all the gestalt programs to make a decision that can affect us all."

"Maglieri Blas asked us to continue the cooperation between our races, by helping you in everything you do. A decision that reached a fast consensus by us. You can decide if you want to be only a coworker or if you will be the second friend we have made in our existence."

The brunette was stunned and felt as her jaw hit the concrete floor. She couldn't believe that one of the last gifts from my father was a fully operational geth unit, with the knowledge of all the gestalt network in it. But at the same time her young mind was racing trying to remember the adventures of her father so she could ubicate where he made contact with him.

_He said he knew them for the best part of thirteen years, so... Can it be his last stunt in Omega, where he was running for his life?_

"So... tell me you said you've known my father for at least thirteen years, you made contact with him when he was racing from the Batarian Hegemony after the cruiser exploded near Imorkan right?"

"Affirmative, we saved the escape pod from being sucked into the frost planet. A place were he had 99.8% of dying. After that we reached consensus and started working together".

_Wait a second _"Escape pod? I never heard of that" Nylara said with a clearly confused voice.

He moved his eye flaps a bit and tilted his head a bit to the side in what she assumed was a puzzled position.

"He limited information? Strange. We were 87% sure that he would have told you all the story. As we were telling you before, we grabbed the escape pod, after Maglieri Blas set his ship in a crash course with the Batarian Hegemony cruiser, that resulted in a massive eezo shockwave that changed the pod's course from Omega to the Imorkan planet and that give you your biotic abilities during your programming"

After thinking for a moment about what could have happened if that geth didn't help her father, she couldn't help the involuntary shudder that passed through her. With a thoughtful look, she gazed at the geth again.

"Do you have some kind of name? And do you know where there's food? I'm starving."

He was criptically silent for some seconds and when she thought that she would have to ask again he moved towards a crate that was right next to him.

"Yes, we have a name. However we recommend that you hear the last message from your father first. And the food is in this crate, normal army MRE's".

Nylara slowly begun to feel some moisture in the corner of her eyes.

"Yes, please play the message." was the only thing she could mutter in a choked voice.

The warehouse was silent for a moment as the lights from the geth appeared to be focused inwards.

_Maybe reviewing his databanks?_

We stay like that for some time until some noise was heard from the geth unit.

"_My little girl, if you are hearing this file it is because the gang managed to kill me and because you have found Jax, my geth buddy. I know you girl, I know that you will want to take revenge from the bastards that killed me and I decided to make it my last wish. If that's so, I have sent alongside this message the location of a warehouse from the Irish bastards. When you go against them remember the nine long years of training, I know I pushed you too hard my little girl, but I was hoping that you training was ready when this finally happened. I'm glad to see that it was as I planned. And I'm __rather proud to tell you, that you have at least the same training that N7 soldiers have, but at the same time I'm sorry that it caused you so much deprivation and pain. I have to repeat it, I'm deeply sorry about the mechanichal reconstruction we have to do with your arms sweety, I never intended to let that idiot that called himself a biotic teacher go so far." _

"_I had left with Jax all of your special and customized equipment, and yes it includes my little wicked blade that you loved so much. But before everything, I also left some special things, that I need you to put on before you go against the Irish. The first one is a unique type of biotic amp developed with special tech. It is made with human, geth and, after some years of deep research, a bit of prothean tech. In fact it is made resembling the ancient prothean amps, that were like a network connected to several parts of the brain." _

"_Don't worry Nyly, Jax is more than capable to implant you with the amp surgically. The second surprise is a pair of special sealed shots. From what I could crack from the protheans writing they are, and I'm quoting here, 'A benefit for a future species, so you do not fail like us'. It is supposed to enhance your biotics by allowing you to use them like a prothean. The other instructions I could decipher said that they had to be put at the same time in a place near your arms, or preferably there." _

"_The set of skills we worked so hard these years to achieve, will let you be a thief or an assasin easily, so now you have a job after you avenge me from them. Goodbye my little angel, be safe and see you on the other side". _

The warehouse quieted down again after the long message, while Jax's eye focused again and started studying the brunette looking for reactions, but she paid no mind as she was stunned by the last message from my father.

_Experimental prothean shots? They were there for 5,.000 years, just how the chemichals in them didn't evaporate?. _

While she was in it, she started remembering bits of her painful training...

_She was four years old, heard her door open and turned to see her father with a strange man that could be called easily a bear... _

_She was in some combat gear and was trying frantically to dodge the frontal punches from the boxing expert. Dodge. Duck. Sidestep. **CRACK**. Pain in her wrist... _

_She was crying in a chair and her father injected something in her broken bones. Upon entering, that 'something' made her feel like her whole wrist was on fire. She started screaming at the top of her lungs. Minutes later the pain stopped and her bone was healed. Now her father concentrates his gaze with her and only says one word. "Again"... _

_She had at least five teachers, Michael Le R'uleu, her teacher of muay-thay, Steven Scovief her teacher in full contact, Jack 'The Bear' Stackhouse her boxing teacher, Fabio Jordao her teacher of capoeira and finally Dominic Tonalest her street fighting teacher. She learned to hate them all, especially Dominic... _

_She was nine, she had already had her revenge with Michael, breaking both of his kneecaps; Steven, shoulders dislocated and third degree fracture of his right leg; 'The Bear', both wrists busted and elbows practically obliterated and Fabio, dislocated knees and broken hip. The only one left was Dominic and she was going to enjoy it... _

_She was mad. Dominic kept dodging her attacks and she couldn't score one complete hit. Suddenly she felt a sudden calm on her mind, how her feet seemed to feel lightier and the world slowed a lot. Sprinting she saw his surprised expression and hit him hard in his jaw with a hand that was coated in blue. Gazing at herself she saw a biotic corona. Saying she was shocked was an understandment... _

_Her father telling her tips while she was lining her sight with her newly acquired pistol. How she started missing and started getting frustrated with herself. The training with her sniper rifle was a bit better, 'She's truly a natural' she heard one of his father's friends muttering quietly... _

_The mock battle where she had to survive only using her dual pistols and her sniper while she dodged bullets filled with red paint... _

_Gabriel D'oneil, that damned irish, her biotic teacher. How he one day snapped and pulled her in the air, and threw her into the ground. Hard. How her body was wrecked and how she was only a step from dying. How her father was so angry that he started shooting at the bastard until he was nothing more than a damn cheese... _

_How her father introduce her to the fine art of hacking. How he would encourage her to hack first Windows Century: Space edition, the most basic windows system. How after months of hard work, she could finally hack into her father's terminal, one of the best secured terminal on Earth. How her father was so proud when she hacked into his computer... _

_How her father finally trained her in free running, letting her be with the only friendly teacher she had ever known, Maria Maanderi, her parkour teacher. How she taught her to climb through walls, how she taught her to walk without making a sound, the secrets of the free running and lastly and not less important, how she taught her to be one with the shadows, to dissapear to everyone except the most trained eye... _

_How her father insisted that she was trained with his weird machete, and her smaller second knife. How he insisted that she leaped from cover to cover while summersaulting and doing other kinds of stuff while trying to behead target placed in different places... _

She stopped the painful memories and considered her choices for the future. She could either be as her father said, a very good thief or assasin, they had a nice pay and if you were respected in your job, you could easily live as a king, or in this case like a queen. She could also be a mercenary or... She grinned when she considered her father's words and twisted them with her stoic sense of justice.

She could be both a thief and an assasin, recovering stolen goods and cleaning the universe of it's worst scum. In fact, with her resources and training she could be one hell of a vigilante.

Snapping out of her deep thoughts, she turned her gaze to Jax, who was still studying her with his single eye. She felt more at ease towards the geth with the words of her father.

_Besides if this guy will inplant me with that weird amp, I have to at least show him some confidence. Right? _

"So Jax, do you have a clean room to put the amp in me?"

"Affirmative. Follow me Whitewind Nylara." He said starting to walk towards the deepest part of the complex.

_**0o0o0o0 **_

Hours later, Nylara awoke to a beautiful headache and a stiff body. She was practically forced to remain lying down in the bed from the clean room. After some minutes, that passed like hours she managed to sit with a groan when the sedatives finally started leaving my system.

"How are you feeling Whitewind Nylara?" A very loud mechanichal voice said from behind me.

"Like my head is being beaten with a giant hammer. Would you mind speaking more quietly or not speak at all? I need a damn glass of water or some sleep to at least try to soothe the damn pain."

Miracously he decided that he didn't need to keep talking, saving me from a more powerful headache, while she leaned down and decided that sleeping would be the best option to save her from a damn migraine or worse.

_But hey, why am I complining? It's not like this is experimental technology from a civilization wiped out 50.000 years ago... Ohhh wait... it is. Damn luck... _

Nylara awoke hours later, to find out that her head wasn't bothering at all. Sighing with relief she sit up and watched as Jax seemed to be occupied because he was standing at a side from the large room, while having his light in his eye focused inwards.

"Hey are you ok?" She asked a few minutes later as he didn't move at all, not even a small twitch.

"Yes, we ask you a bit more of your patience, since we are playing 'Galaxy of Fantasy' we are currently raiding one of the last bosses from the Perseus Veil Raid".

"What? You play videogames? And more importantly, you play MMORPG?" Nylara asked with a shocked voice.

"Yes, we do. We reached consensus that it would help us to try to understand organics better. In the thirteen years we have passed with your father, we have beaten every single videogame created from 1995 to 2159. We still have to beat eighteen years of games, but we have found that communicating with people help us to understand organics a bit more." He answered with a tone of voice that made me think he was a bit annoyed.

_I didn't even know he could feel anything, and he is annoyed with me? I don't know if I'm getting insane from this new amp or not. _

"If you are interesed we still have them in our drive core and we could transfer them into your omnitool".

"Sure" She replied with a thoughtful voice, that would certainly give her something to do in the moments she would certainly got bored. Thinking about the amp, she tried to summon her biotics and control them and it was a great surprise when she saw that this amp improved her biotics a lot. She could easily lift the 160 pound bed from the floor without tiring at all.

_Damn, that's quite a boost. _

Some time later, she noticed that his companion was giving her his full attention so Nylara stopped trying to test her powered biotics, manipulating them again so she would leave everything as it was before.

"So Jax, can you show me my equipment and the pair of shots? I want to go to the Irish and show them that you don't fuck with my family without some very heavy consequences." Nylara growled with a dangerous glint in her eye.

"Affirmative. Follow us." He said while he was leaving the door of the improvised med bay.

When she walked outside of it, she couldn't help but notice the sign that said _Warehouse Owner's Bedroom._

_So that was the place where I would spent every single night until I left this planet. Nice._

Nylara followed him until he stopped at a rather strange piece of wall, and keyed in a rapid sequence a very large password. Seconds later, the wall retracted a bit and was placed behind another piece of wall, while revealing a narrow path into an iluminated chamber.

Jax felt a bit uneasy as the smile she had on her face upon entering widened dangerously when she got a look at her 'babies' and reached a hasty consensus to never make her angry, because that would only have one outcome; the obliteration of his body.

Her specialized omnitool, that had every single hacking program existing in the galaxy, so she could have fun cracking every single locked door, it had almost five thousand terabytes of free memory, it was synched to her DNA so it couldn't be manipulated or replicated, it had a heat sensor, allowing her to notice every single body within a building and it was powerful enough to try to crack coded transmitions from people like System's Alliance or the salarian STG among others.

Her armor, was a personalized black leather jacket with a white tank top and a strange and comfortable looking pant that had special nanomachines in its fiber that allowed it to adjust to her body like a glove and to be cleaned easily. It has reinforced ceramic plating in its frame, and the plating was made in such way that it was thin and resistent at the same time. It had some heavy kinetic barriers, that were placed in her right hip, just bellow her belt, a black recon hood, a special HUD developed in an eye piece so she could put it into her left eye. It was light grey with white letters in it so she could recieve and read all of the information easily. The HUD inside the glass could tell her if her enemies were biotics or not, the exact distance to its target, a special program in it that will inmediately show any weak point in an armor, so she could exploit it, it was synched to her DNA like her omnitool and last but not less important, an OCD player so she could watch things when she was bored or waiting for someone, the OCD player come incorporated with some headphones that could also be used to hear music from her omnitool. The hood had a special compartment that kept a breather in case she was in a zone heavy in chemichals or if she was dropped in vacuum.

In the weapons rack, there was her second knife, that had ten inchs of deadliness in it, made with the metal geth dropships and armatures had in their armors, making it practically indestructible and allowing it to sink deep into the flesh. The point of the little dagger, was made of carefully forged diamond pointed edge allowing it to tear armor easily if needed.

In one special compartment, they were two identical pistols, heavily modified. They were painted white, and they have some of the best mods of the market regarding to the heat sinks, the precition shooting and the speed in which the bullets were fired, allowing them a greater penetration. The bullets were some piercieng ones that would guarantee that the one in the receiving end of them would have their armor shredded easily.

On a table in the middle of the room, there were placed her two little loves. A sixteen inch curved blade, that her father looted from a high-noble batarian after he killed him in Omega. The blade was practically a piece of art by how it was made. It was made with a very rare batarian method of forging, allowing it to tear most metal into scrap. The blade was made of very sharp diamond and titanium, and had incorporated some tech that made the diamond parts vibrate with some carefully placed eezo, making it possible to cut any type of armor currently at the market. The hilt was wrapped in black puma leather and it had an adorned varren fang in the low part of it.

Her second love was her heavily modified sniper rifle. It was as black as a piece of coal, and it has two dragons engraved into each side of the rifle. The dragons were painted with a deep shade of silver, and they gave the rifle a vintage and deadly image. It was so heavily modified, that it allowed the wielder to shoot up to thirty two shots per heat sink, an allarged barrel that allowed bullets to travel further, it had a special eezo engine that allowed the bullets to travel at very high speeds and a specialized scope. A scope that allowed her to exploit the same features of her HUD. The weapon it had an almost non-existent recoil and it was as light as one of her pistols. It fired some heavy explosive bullets covered with some energy so she could bypass most of the barriers and that would technichally kill or maim everything in the wrong side of them.

She gazed lovingly to her equipment and was snapped out of her thoughtful demenour when her gaze reached a sealed box. Walking up to it she opened it and saw a pair of syringes. Sighing to herself she grabbed them and started walking into her quarters while telling Jax to follow her and putting on the white tank top so the syringes would have an easy path.

A few moments later she positioned herself on top of her bed. She signaled Jax to grab the shots. He positioned himself in front of her and put the shots touching the skin lightly but without penetrating the epidermis.

"Are you ready Whitewind Nylara? The instructions say that it would hurt a bit."

Sighing loudly she steeled her resolve and looked at Jax "Do it."

Nylara closed her eyes as she felt Jax administering the shots. After at least three quarters of the content was in her system, she started feeling some pain and uncounciously sent Jax and the syringes flying into the wall, thanking at the same time that the shots were in a metal tube. She tried to ignore the pain but it started developing at the same time than a very nasty headache. Seconds later the pain advanced, until her whole body felt like it was on fire. Nylara clutched her head and started screaming in pain, while her biotics started to manifest wildly in her surroundings. Her eyes were watering from the pain, and she was startled as her blue biotic corona seemed to be changing into something darker and at the same time brighter.

Then hell happened, she felt like there were hundreds of flaming needles poking into her brain constantly and with a last high-pitched scream of pain she collapsed as everything start fading to black.

**A/N: **_Well, that's the first chapter. You know, I think it was kind of cruel to let you hanging with this cliffhanger, but... well nevermind, you got this cliffhanger and you have to wait for the second chapter ;) _

_I decided that It would be nice that the universe use heat sinks since the start, because It would simplify some things like for example Elyssi... Whoops too much information. Virus detected, achieving emergency consensus. Start the purge of the memory core. _

_PD: Yes, I know, what a shitty uprising she had right? _

**A/N: **I apologize if my updates are very discontinuous, but I don't have the amount of free time I really want to write. So whenever I can I will be putting the second chapter.


	2. The Revelation

_A/N: I'm really sorry for the large amount of time that passed between my first chapter and this one, I had some very rough days, and when I finally have it finished, I was communicated that my Beta was kidnapped by her family for work, so I had another week of waiting. Since she remains in her family slavery circle (I think that TemptingEternity13 will agree with me that his father has batarian heritage or at least a bit of batarian blood) I decided to update today, so if you notice any mistake please tell me._

_A/N2: Thanks to Elizabeth Carter for allowing me to use his background and information about Asari. It definitely saved me from the 'pleasure' of thinking every single bit of asari culture._

**Disclaimer: Sadly I don't own... T.T**

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Images started flashing through Nylara's mind, making her think that she was having one nightmare after another, all of them at a frightfull pace. Feelings were also thrown into the mix, making everything even more chaotic if possible.

_Despair. Anger. Sorrow. Pain._

_A huge armada of synthetic beings appearing through the relay. Our armada destroyed. The pleasure achieved after destroying twenty seven of the damned machines. _

_The assasintaion of our elders, who handled our government. Billions dying when they attacked our homeword _Tak'La'D_. The harvesting of our homeword when they send some buglike creatures who place our people into some kind of stasis field. _

_The desctrucion of our only allies in the galaxy, the catlike humanoids called Axhanis, who lived in the trees of their homeword for being a 'genetical failure'. _

_The cries of despair after they started appearing in the colonies. The fear when you saw a lot of mindless cybernetic beings, resembling protheans, charging into the wall of defenders. _

_The pain when you are impaled by one of the spikes and when your body start to burn as it changes. How your mind slowly lose conscience. A final glance, watching how your body is resembling one of the mindless husks that attacked us._

After some time, when the images stopped repeating themselves, trying to get her insane, Nylara finally opened her eyes, finding herself in a strange realm, where the horizon seemed to be fading and the surroundings were from different shades of purple and blue.

The brunette found herself staring at a group of twelve people, each of them seated in a kind of chair, that by the looks of them, they seem confortable. Twelve people who seemed to be waiting for something to happen, but she averted her gaze quickly, as she continued letting her confused eyes wander through the space, swiveling her head from side to side trying to catch every sinle detail concerning with her surroundings.

Every single thing that her rapid glances introduced into her mind, contributed to her increased agitation, who was growing quickly in the core of her body. She was fidgeting and twitching as her agitation keep growing and growing. When she remembered the seated figures and looked at them again, she felt twelve pair of eyes, focusing on every single movement she made filled with understanding.

After some time noticing that her surroundings remained unchanged, that the hellish nightmares wouldn't hunt her into this place and that the twelve alliens in front of her remained seated in their fancy chairs, Nylara started feeling as her body was relaxing slowly, muscle by muscle. As she was calming herself, she started studying the alliens seated in front of her.

They had an humanoid form, with some tentacles going down from their faces reminding her of Davy Jones from the film of the 21th century, Pirates of the Caribbean, but their tentacles were smaller. The males seemed to have slightly larger tentacles than the females, who on the other hand, had what seemed to be a normal female human torso. Their skin was pigmente like some of the deepest shades of colour from the ocean. Nylara inmediately thought that they were similar to the shade of colour of her eyes. Their hands and bared feet looked like talons, like the ones the hawks have.

But their most striking feature were their eyes. The eyes were definitely equal to the ones that the humans had, but they were from some deep shades of colour. They started with a deep shade of the chosen colour at the external part of the iris, being so the deepest shade of colour in the place were the iris and the white part of the eye meet, lightening up the colour until there was a small white circle before the black pupil of the eye, having four white dots, in the form of a cross, in the middle of the iris. _[AN: For the four dots of white think of it like the black dots of the sharingan from Sasuke in Naruto]_

When Nylara finished her quick study of the creatures in front of her, she noticed that the male that was seated in front of the rest, who were seated in a semicircle located behind of his position, was silently gesturing a chair in front of him, that somehow managed to appear in the lapse of time she spent staring at them. The gesture was clearly an order indicating her to sit there, and since she didn't know anything about her 'hosts' or about the place, she decided to comply with the wordless indication.

That was when the 'leader' of them started talking in a voice that seemed to be spilling music through the different tones it managed to reach. His voice remind the brunette of sweet melodies played by violoncellos and basses.

"Greeting young one, welcome to our place of our final rest" Nylara started panicking upon hearing those words. _What the hell? I am DEAD? Shit. Shit. Why? _"Before you become to agitated, know that your body is alive in the real world. However is currently suffering some modifications"

Nylara started relaxing again with the sudden reasurance that her body was fine and suffering some modifica-. She stiffened when she noticed that last part of the sentence.

_Modifications? What the fuck is happening to my body?_

With a suddenly strangled voice in a very dry mouth she managed to blurt out "W-What do you m-mean with modifications in my b-body?"

The allien sighed and met the eyes with a female that was located at his left, in one end of the semicircle. She seemed to get some kind of silent permission to talk, since her beautiful musical voice was heard. Nylara was a bit stunned with the uncanny resemblance her voice had with some of the sweetest accords of an harp and of a flute.

"Before we can explain the modifications that your body is suffering right now, we need to talk to you about our life, are you calmed enough to listen or do I have to wait some minutes?"

Nylara felt herself loosening her muscles thanks to her sweet soothing voice and to her amber coloured eyes "Please go on" She said with a blank tone of voice and a neutral face, settling her mind in a way that would allow her to absorb every bit of information that she was going to listen.

Nylara sensed a hint of approval in her tone of voice and a glimpse of amusement on her eyes as she continued her explication "Before you entered into this realm you saw some visions or maybe dreams about chaos and destruction, right?"

"Yes. They were... unpleasant" Nylara answered nodding slowly, not seeing which point the female was trying to reach and trying to let those memories in the deepest corner of her mind, so she couldn't revive them.

"What you saw, was some of the last thoughts, memories and sensations some of my kind had before the Reapers aniquilated us. Yes my dear girl, we are protheans. Or we were" She finished the sentence with a voice full of bitterness and hate, making her stunning voice sound like a bunch of strings out of tone.

When Nylara opened her mouth to ask how was that possible, she heard another voice at her right, and as her head swiveled toward that voice, she noticed that the owner was another female, and that her voice resembled some piano melody.

_Is there any voice that don't seem to be any instrument or group of them?._

"Let us finish before you ask anything please." Her voice had such a tone of finality and seemed so much like an order that she couldn't help but snap my mouth close. "In front of you, there are twelve of our greatest people, who were part of a hidden research, that allowed us to put a part of our souls and all of our memories into the pair of shots you just inject yourself. We are from left to right, starting with Xert'lo our head researcher, who is currently seated in front of us, Anarien'e one of the best hackers we had, Satl'llo and Illa'os a pair of unique biotic twins. They are unique because of one modification in our biotic synapses and nodules, allowing them to manipulate the energies normally, but giving their biotic corona a black and white colour respectively. This biotic mutation is only recieved by very few biotic users among us, only one or two thousands within the trillons we were. They were a surprise since they have the only two biotic mutations known in our race and they were born as twins."

"Then we have Tallid'ir one of our most famous ship engineers, four of our most respected teachers, being them Fel'laran our instructor of our culture, Thar'a our instructor of our art, Hinta'aro our instructor of our language and our writting and last but not less important Art'emsa our instructor of our music. The two at my right are Kyl'la one of the best teachers from hand to hand training and Ken'yii one of the top of our trainers in the use of our ceremonial swords and daggers, thanks to his decades of experience since he was our top champion in our ceremonial fights officiated in our _Velký stad. _Finally I'm Ple'yonne one of the most recognized and succesful biotic teachers."

When Ple'yonne finished teaching the brunette the names and importance of every one of the people seated, Xert'lo continued with the explication. "As you heard before, this research allowed us to put a part of our souls and memories by sacrificing our lives and bodies, with a complex element zero machine and the pilot from our ship hide this shots in a planet of your Sol system. This research was started by us in the first month of the invasion of the Reapers, and finished when Illos and our secret station were the only things remaining one hundred and twenty one years later, when we were almost reaching the end of our life."

"Technically speaking, this research allowed part of our genetic material alongside with our memories saved in some soft electrical impulses that couldn't be detected by your body, to enter into your bloodstream and therefore give you your memories as well as some improvements to your body, which are already happening while we are speaking, they were mixed with a unique combination of elements to protect it from the danger of the centuries."

Nylara was thoughtfull as well as awed by the huge leap in technology from the protheans and terrified by the changes she was suffering right now. "What kind of changes is suffering my body?" The brunette asked with a firm voice, telling them silently that she wouldn't stop until she had an answer.

Art'emsa studied her for some seconds before starting the explanation with her melodious harp voice "Firstly, your brain is being mapped to be like one of a Prothean. In a simpler way of speaking it can be explained like this: Normal human brains, from what we have seen so far in you have one or two pathways, used to transmit ideas, reflexes and memories constantly. However, they are full of debris, making the pathway more difficult to travel, and slowing the 'people'. "

"Using your brain as a Prothean will allow to use four, five or up to six clear pathways, without a hint of debris. This new pathways will permit you to have an almost perfect memory as well as increased reflexes. Your brain will also be configured as to how we protheans and Asari have it infested with eezo nodules, allowing you to be a very powerful natural biotic, as well as allowing you to interact correctly with you prothean amp. You mind will also have a 'stronghold' where our memories will remain, until you can absorb them all. If we don't do this, we will fry your brains by overloading it with too much information."

"Then it's the matter of your body. We protheans were faster and stronger than you, so your cells are adapting slightly to some changes that will make you faster and stronger than most humans, and because we don't have enough information of another races we can't tell you exactly how it will be with them."

"Your biotics will also change. As we have already say they will be stronger, but at the same time genetic material from Satl'llo and Illa'os our biotic pair will be integrating into your body. You see, they are different from normal biotics, they suffered some mutation in the womb which make them into what we know as a _cień__člověk_ which in your language translates to 'Shadow biotic' or handler of the black biotics and _czysty__člověk_ which in your language translates to 'Pure biotic' or handler of the white biotics. We are making your body react, by giving you the genetic tatoo in each arm, this tatoo will change your eezo nodules in your body, so they glow white and black. This kind of biotics are a little more destructive than normal ones, as well as they will open you some new paths to some new and greater abilities."

"Our presence in your brain will remain until we can teach you all of our knowledge, when we have done our job, unless you decide against it because you have becomed attached to some of us, we will fade from your mind into our final sleep. Your eyes had been changed as well, to the ones of a Prothean, this will allow you to have a very good eyesight, maybe better than some hawks we can't really know. Your lifespan has also been changed, you will live more or less five hundred years. That number of years is the average of a normal lifespan in a Prothean."

Nylara felt a rush of excitement as well as a sudden cold feeling in her stomach that appeared when she was terrified towards the news she was given of her body.

Xert'lo raised from his chair and approached her fluidly, as if his body was made for dancing and set a hand on her shoulder. "You can wake up now kid, remember you are our last hope against the Reapers. You will have a long way ahead but do not fear, since you will find allies." A smile reached his aquamarine lips "Maybe you can ask help from Jax's people? Who knows, a synthethic is bound to know their own weakness. Right?" He said winking playfully at me, showing more emotion in this last conversation than during the whole explanation of the things that were happening to me.

Before she could answer, a wave of dizziness hit her. Nylara's terrified eyes met his tranquil gaze and she felt herself loosening up with the soft reassurance that his eyes were showing. Seconds later she felt as the darkness started consuming her and heard a faint whisper in the back of her mind.

"Remember you are our last hope kid, save the galaxy from another cycle."

_0o0o0o0_

Nylara slowly regained consciousness, and groaned as she noticed how stiff was her entire body. It didn't help being on tank tops in a cold hard metallic floor. She opened her eyes and was rewarded by some really bright light that make her close her eyes in a record time, grunting as she put her hands into them, so they can be shielded from the painful light.

Her musings were suddenly cutted short when she heard a distinctive synthethic voice "Whitewind Nylara? Will you drop your biotic firewall so we can help you? And what happened to your hardware?"

"Give me a second Jax ok? I'm trying to sort everything I saw in my mind" The brunette whispered with a very hoarse voice.

"Affirmative, if your internal processes are lacking in their functioning, we have left some food as near as your biotic firewall let me operate without being obliterated or being thrown into a wall, you have been inconscious for eighty-seven hours twenty two minutes and forty seven seconds. And suffered some changes in your structure. Are they beneficious or the shots were a virus?" Jax's voice seemed to turn agitated at the last part.

_Huh, who would have known that a geth could feel?_

Opening her eyes slowly, Nylara started searching for the food, noticing that a black and white biotic field of two meters was containing her, pushing everything outside the field and letting her in a clean two meter circle. With a wave of her hand she take out the field and groaning tried to raise herself from the ground, failing miserably. If it wouldn't have been for Jax's help, her nose would be cheerfully meeting with the nice metallic floor.

"Thanks Jax" As she was seating at her bed that was at the other side of the room, her eyes stopped again in the geth "Can you bring me the food, I'm _starving_".

Five minutes, five MRE and three bottles of water later, Nylara relaxed against the bed. It was when she placed her head on the pillow that she noticed that her hair was odd.

"What the-" The brunette swiveled in the bead towards the full body mirror finally noticed the changes occured in her body.

Her eyes were as Xert'lo told to her, with the external part of the iris being from the darkest shade of blue posible, lightening as it would go towards the pupil of her eye, until it was a very faint shade of aquamarine, having the distinctive white circle before the black of the eye, and also having the four little dots of white forming the cross pattern. Her right arm had a tatoo, that seemed to be like a tribal design, looking like a laberinth of vines and spines, traveling from her wrist up to her collar bone. The tatoo was of a pristine white color, contrasting greatly against her olive tanned skin. In her left hand she had the same tatoo, but it was raven black colored, making the tatoo, to look like it was made with coal. They were so perfect and equal, that if it wasn't for the difference of color, it would seem that there was a mirror between her arms. Her body seemed to be far more athletic, having more curves were they were before light muscles, showing that her body somehow trained in the time she was out.

It would also seem, that her body somehow finished his development, since she was sure that the tank top and the shorts weren't so _tiny _before. And She was sure as hell that she wasn't as tall. However the most striking and unexpected change in her body was the one that happened with her hair. The antique raven black wavy hair, was changed, it was now silver colored hair instead of the natural black, it was amazingly soft to the touch and remained as wavy as she had it before the 'vision' she suffered.

"Damn, I don't recognize myself. Now I'm very gratefull of the special feature of my cloth to adjust to myy body".

_**We recomend young one that you take some time to get used to your body.**_

Nylara's head scanned the room slowly looking for the source of the voice. When she found nothing she couldn't stop furrowing her brows and narrowing her eyes into a puzzled stare.

_I Swear that I heard something, but Jax didn't react. Maybe I'm getting a little crazy for playing with creepy prothean artifacts? Yeah I think that's the problem._

_**No young one. **_The voice said into her head with a very recognizable tone of mirth **_Our experiment is not 'creepy' and you are not mad. This is a side effect of our research, allowing us to comunicat ewith you, until you have absorved our teaching and decided if you want someone of us with your mind._**

_As I said... Creepy._

Nylara sighed loudly and turned to Jax. "Hey we need to talk about some serious matter, and I need at least a week to adapt my body to the changes. When the time passes we will raid the Irish and we will obliterate them". Her usually calm voice changed into an angry one at the end of the sentence showing her deep hate against the organization.

"Affirmative. What's your inquiry Whitewind Nylara?"

"Ok, first we need to adress how you name me. I like my name but I want to be inconspicuous so from now on please call me Raven. I decided that because I will be leaving in my 'work zones' raven's feathers, since my father gift me a very large collection of them and I want to advance in the underworld fast and easy so acquiring big targets in a fast way and leaving a distinctive mark will serve my purposes."

"Affirmative Raven"

"Good, now do you think that your people can redirect every single resource and platform to start building an army, believe me we will need it, because the protheans tell me some very disturbing things..."

"The consensus will await until we are informed of every single bit of information".

"Fair enough" When Nylara saw that he was focused on her person, she started telling him about the fate of the protheans, reliving the damned nightmares as she was telling him. After some painful minutes, she silenced herself when she finished relying every single drop of information and remained sitted on bed shivering, due to the damn perfect memory and the damn nightmares.

Jax was silent for some minutes, until his head moved slightly to one side. "A consensus has been achieved, we will start the process of creating ships and platforms so we can fend the incoming invasion. However this will be a slow process, since we don't have a safe place to start the production."

"Don't worry Jax, after we deal with this idiots we will grab a ship and I will show your people the way to the relay were the prothean homeworld was ubicated. There I want that your people start rebuilding part of the planet for colonizing and I want a structure at least as big as the citadel, that functions as a major shipyard, as well as a space were people can live. When I have them in my mind I will start uploading schematichs ef some prothean ships as well as the new plan for the giant station."

"Interesting plans, a consensus has been achieved and we will help you with this plans, however we are curious, why do you need another giant structure like the citadel, that can support at least fifteen million people?"

"Believe me Jax, before the end of this war we will need it" I said with a very serious tone in my voice that leaved no room for a rejection.

_A/N: For the prothean language I'm utilizing a mix of Czech and Polish courtessy of wordreference [dot] com_

_Italics = Thoughts or memories_

_**Bold italics = Protheans talking in Nylara's mind**_


	3. First Steps

_A/N: I'm back! I'm really sorry that it had taken me this long to update the story, but I was with some personal business, some illness and lately with a still beta reader going as MIA, so I had to go to a friend of mine so he could check it, and he was very busy all the week, having just finished reviewing the chapter._

**Disclaimer: Don't own, I REALLY wish I could but alas it's not happening.**

**2177 – March 20th**

The room was covered by an eerie darkness in which there was a deathly silence. Interrupted by the regular intake and outlet of air of the covered body nestled in the center of the bed. The quiet atmosphere was shattered when a loud beep was heard from the left hand of the cuddled figure. The deafening noise continued until a hand stabbed the key in the omnitool that would silence the program, allowing two glazed eyes due to sleep to open and letting the body of those striking eyes to start the process of eliminating the tiredness from her system.

Nylara's slowly awakening mind focused on her omnitool, discovering that it was almost twenty-three hundred, the hour designed by Jax and herself for her plan on taking out the bastards who killed her father. When her brain remembered what would happen that designed night, the drowsiness was inmediately erased from her mind, leaving her with her usual sharp thoughts.

While she was walking through the warehouse, she couldn't stop her mind wandering into the last days, that were focused into an intense retraining of her body, adapting her old abilities into her new body and trying to become used to her new eyesight, biotics, force, speed and memory. Definitely not an easy feat, especialy taking in mind that she had to retrain every single move teached to her without a partner while abusing of the gym so she could test her new limits, adapting herself in mind and body trying to be her old self in a body that was now new to her refited to kill on command.

_As a very wise man said one time it was fun-facking-tastic. _The venom in her thoughts was so great that she could imagine how a drop or two could melt some inches into the floor.

When she entered the main room of the warehouse, she quickly found Jax and signaled him to go to the hidden armory, following him a second later. Upon entering the armory, which Jax entered first due to his closeness to it, she noticed as how the geth was storing his sniper rifle, assault rifle and a pair of pistols, one of each of his metallic thigs.

Nylara watched closely as Jax was finishing his preparations for the raid tonight, and she wandered how the hell she would go with him unnoticed for almost two klicks.

"Hey Jax, do you have some kind of cloak or something? 'Cuz I don't think that the people in the street will be relaxed if they catch a glimpse of you." Her eyes twinkled with amusement showing to him, who had along the years picked up some organic emotions and how to spot them, how funny she find the fear of the civilians towards her companion.

"We have an advanced stealth system like the stealth generator created by your father." Jax said while the flaps on his head moved showing a synthetic smug look.

Nylara smiled at the confidence displayed by Jax. _Smartass _she thought making her smile go wider. "Good, wait until I suit myself and lets fo pay a visit to them, _si_?"

"Affirmative." A second passed after he talked again surprising her "We have a query."

"Yes?" She said while moving towards her armor rack.

"What was the last word you said?"

Nylara looked at him surprised until something clicked in her head, allowing her to catch what was Jax asking "My father never told you to look for the program to translate Italian into a language you know?" She asked him shocked.

"Negative, we will begin the download now."

Three minutes later, she was ready. When she saw herself in the mirror located at the armory, she couldn't help but to admire how the armor fit into her body, showing the quality of it and of how it fits her newly developed body like a glove, showing the quality of its nanomachines. She still couldn't wrap her mind in how the protheans could finish almost eight years of body development in only three days, but she was sure as hell that she wasn't complaining.

The image returning her gaze in the mirror looked misterious and deadly thanks to her tactical hood, that covered her eyes from the prying eyes while shadowing the rest of her face, only letting her pouty lips showing to the enemies. A part from her folded sniper rifle showed by the right side of her lower back, just on top of her hip. Her twin pistols were strapped one into each thigh, allowing her an easy access. Finally her knives were strapped between her shoulderblades, showing her hilts at each side of her head.

She was quite pleased with her image, she wanted that the people respect and fear her through her appearance.

"Ready Jax?" She asked twitching slightly when she thought about starting the dying wish from her father "I want to judge your abilities, since we will be working together at least until the entire gang is erradicated."

"Affirmative. This platform will scout the place when we arrive." Jax suggested with his synthetic voice, showing that the platform could make sound tactical decitions.

"Sure, you scout them and then we show those _bastardos _what is the punishment for killing someone of my family." She said quite pleased with him "Lets get going, there are some idiots with their names written in some of my bullets."

_**0o0o0o0**_

**Outskirts of the city – Green Irish Leaves warehouse**

Nylara was crouched on the insides of a building that was under construction, with her sniper rifle ready. She was waiting for Jax's intel while scanning the roofs and balconys looking for threats. The intel was very important, because she needed the leader alive so she could 'ask him nicely' about the rest of the safe houses of the gang.

She continued scanning the surroundings, taking note of the guards that she saw through the window, until she heard Jax approaching into her hiding place. When he finished relying the intel, she easily build a plan and with Jax's approval they quickly moved to the designated places so they could start the first part of their plan.

Operation First Steps was finally on the move.

_**0o0o0o0**_

_What a quiet night _Seán thought for eleventh time in his first hour of watch. He was a relatively new member to the Irish and he had to be a watchdog for at least two months until he was given his first assignment. His partner in this slow torture called 'Watch the warehouse front door' was sitted on top of some building materials, gazing lazily at the stars while he smoked.

Some minutes later -that seemed like hours to them- his partner, Finn, bored with the monotome night and with only one cigarette in his pack, jumped off the materials and, gazing at Seán, told him with a bored tone "I'm going to stretch my legs, if someone asks tell them I went to take a piss."

"Sure." Seán answered with an equally bored tone "Just be quick I'm dying of boredom here."

His only answer was a chuckle, while Finn was rounding the corner.

Seconds later he heard a catcall "Hey Seán look what I have found." followed by an earsplitting woman scream. While he was looking at the corner where his friend disappeared, he started hearing some moans and grinning he started going to the alley, so he could also have fun with the toy that his partner have picked.

The moans grew louder and louder when he started nearing the place of the fun and when he entered the extremely dark alley, he noticed his partner crouched near another figure in the ground, when he closed distance, he grasped Finn's shoulder "Hey! Let me get some f-" Seán's enthusiastic request died in his throat when he turned his partner. His eyes widened in fear when he saw Finn's brutally pierced throat, and the metallic object that was emiting the loud moans, not noticing the shadow coming from his left. His brain only managed to connect the facts that his partner was dead, not nailing some eye candy before he felt a metallic feeling at the base of his neck before the darkness engulfed him.

The shadowed figure watched impassively at the blade that went through the thug's throat with a hint of disgust. She couldn't believe that they were so sex addicted that they actually felled for that idiotic trap.

"Idiots" Nylara muttered as she cleaned the blade in the guards clothes. Moving her hand into her dark omnitool, he sent a message to Jax signaling that the first part of the plan was completed and that the area was clear of enemies.

When she rounded the corner, she noticed that Jax was hacking his way into the door's system so they could enter and continue their quest to kill the thugs so they could have the intel they needed.

The door opened and as Nylara darted into cover waiting for Jax's tactical reading from the cameras inside the building without risking her neck to a lucky shot from any idiot that was trained to lift the gun and fire like they are some damn monkeys.

Peaking through the top of her cover, she noticed that this was a small room and that it had only five guards. Four of them being playing poker quite loudly, with the fith watching bored to the match.

"We have accessed the security cameras, leaving a looping program so the ones in the control room can't alert the rest of the place. The boss is in his room exchanging software upgrades with a female platform."

A sound of disgust was heard from Nylara's side, while she was keeping an eye in the bored guards, trying to form a plan in which the five guards met their end in a quick and silent way.

"Jax" Nylara whispered "I'm taking them out stealthily, cover the door."

"Affirmative Raven." The talking geth replied using her new nickname, it internal processors surprised by the quickness in which her plan was created.

Nylara closed her eyes, focusing on his objective, one of the new mnemonics learned by the guests she had inside of her head. A massive pull field. While she was doing that, she grabbed one silencer from one of her hidden pockets and put it on her pistol.

Taking a deep breath she signaled Jax that she was ready and springed into action.

Focusing her biotic energies en her left arm, she left her cover startling the soldiers and condemnig them to a pleasant one-way trip to hell. Making a yanking motion with her arm, the five soldiers found themselves floating in mid air towards their mysterious assailant at an alarming pace. She used her momentum to her advantage, spinning and raising her right hand, which still had the silenced pistol in it. When she regained visual contact with her flying enemies through the corner of her eye, she pulled the trigger three times with deadly precition.

Even before the first bullet pierced the terrorized guard's forehead, Nylara had dropped her pistol to the floor and her biotic energies while moving her hands to the hilt of her mismatched knives and with a quick hand motion, they where free of their prisons and flying at the exposed throats of the surviving pair, piercieng them and killing them instantly.

Jax observed how the daughter of the geth's only friend slaughtered five armed thugs in less than two seconds and without even flinching. It reached a hasty consensus about never being in her bad side, because that would have meaned a 100% chance of movil platform being obliterated.

The young girl looked at the carnage for a few seconds realizing how the memories of killings of her prothean friends prevented her to feel any horror or sickness by her actions, before kneeling to pick up her pistol and while she was putting it in its holster, she picked up her other silencer from the same hidden pocket and proceeded to put it on her other pistol while she was walking to the place where her two knives were leisurely waiting for her, comfortably resting in the throats of the las pair of thugs.

She yanked the knives from the two pierced throats and sheated them after she had cleaned them in the clothes of the unfortunate dead watchdogs. She was _really _gratefull that the only noise the guards emited were some very low yelps of surprise.

"Jax access the security cameras and tell me what we will encounter when we enter that door." Nylara ordered.

"Accessing. The cameras show that it is a bedroom, there are currently six hostiles sleeping and one that has just awaken and is coming to the door."

Nylara didn't answer, she simply pointed one pistol roughly where the head of the mercenary would appear and waited.

Seconds later the door opened and when the thug was about to give the first step to enter into the room he was welcomed by a bullet entering through his left eye.

"C'mon Jax, we have to kill the other six silently before they awaken." Nylara stated while throwing a silenced pistol to his mechanichal companion.

"Affirmative."

They cleaned the room of hostiles, giving one bullet to each of the sleeping gang members. And when they where going to the door at the far side of the room, it opened revealing a sleepy thug, whose eyes widened when he saw the unlikely pair with a pistol in their hands and the six bloody beds.

"We have intruders! Go fetch t-" His command was finished prematurely when Jax managed to put two bullets in its head, unfortunately it also warned the remaining thugs in the other romm that they had company.

"Shit! Jax go to cover." Nylara commanded while she darted towards a clean bed and turned it over so it would provide a somehow decent cover for bullets. She reached for her sniper and peaked with the scope to see how many enemies they had. "Jax, there are five of them, we need to kill them fast so we can catch the leader!"

"Affirmative." Jax said with a calm voice taking his sniper and sighting an enemy, mirroring her own actions.

The fight was brief, since she and Jax had advantage of superior firearms and a decent cover, while the gang members had crappy arms and they only had the door and some very low boxes that allowed her to see parts of their bodies.

When they where sure that they were all dead, Jax and Nylara proceeded into the now silent room. The room was a makeshift armory, since they were arms and crates of armor ubicated on top of the boxes, leaned against the walls and even dropped in the floor near the crates.

"Jax has the leader made any move to escape?"

"Negative. He continues exchanging software upgrades with the handcuffed female platform."

"Excell- Wait a second! Handcuffed? Why didn't you tell me that in FIRST place?" Nylara exploded with very bad conceiled anger.

Jax seemed taken aback by the explosive behaviour displayed by her partner. "We didn't see it important. We are aware that some people enjoy that kind of activities while setting a link between both platforms."

Her eyes were lited with an inner fire that promised seriously bodily harm to the gang leader "Jax." She said with a very dangerous sweet voice that set some alarms inside the geth mobile platform "Please review the logs from the security cameras and tell me if the woman screamed for help at least **ONE **time."

The synthethic being was silent for some seconds while he was reviewing the security footage. After some seconds he looked at her and answered in with what seemed a hesitant tone "Affirmative." She thought it was odd for him to doubt about telling her something "Raven we have an inquiry."

"Yes?"

"Will our platform be phisicaly harmed if we continue to tell you some of the information we just acquired?" He asked in a noticeable nervous tone.

She frowned at the implications of that question "No." She answered truthfully, answer that was rewarded with an automatic fold on the flaps of its head, in a way that displayed barely concealed relief.

"We have also noticed that the female platform hasn't finished its develpment." The geth continued in a somewhat quiet tone.

It took some seconds for Nylara to decipher what his squad mate meaned with that, and when she did, her face darkened and took a very dangerous expression.

"Jax, where is the leader?" She asked in a tone that could freeze molten magma. "'Cuz I think that I have to pay a visit to that _figlio di puttana _and have a nice talk with him."

Jax took some seconds reviewing the security footage, mapping the building with them. "In the next room there will be three doors. The one at the right is the control room. The one at the center leads to the garage and the one to the left leads to a corridor where the door from the leader's room is ubicated."

"Good. Please Jax take care of the control room I'm going to have a chat with him." Nylara said in a hard tone of voice.

"Affirmative Raven."

She entered the large room and quickly ubicated the door that would lead to a very unfortunate man. Accesing her omnitool, she hacked her way through the closed door and entered the corridor. Upon her entrance, some hushed screams and cries were heard. Screams and cries that only served to make the anger inside the silver haired girl grew to a level where her biotics manifested themselves, without her control showing a scary display to anyone that would see from any available camera. She made her way to the door, and abandoned subtlety warping the door into oblivion with her biotics.

Upon entereing the room, she glanced at it quickly looking for the source of the pleas for help. When her eyes setted on the handcuffed tear stricken girl and the naked gang leader who was looking for a gun. Her almost nonexistant control on her emotions snapped.

Nylara threw the leader into a wall with a flicker of her hand, action that was rewarded with the leader going away from his firearm and with a loud crunching noise when his shoulder connected with the wall. He cried out in pain and was rewarded with a biotic lift, so he stayed suspended five meters in the air, while she was walking to the cuffed girl.

"Hey, it's alright sweety." Nylara cooed with a very sweet voice. "I will get you out of this and then I will walk you to home. Ok?"

"Y-Yes p-please." She sobbed "I-I want t-to go with my mom"

"Shhh. Calm down. Don't worry the _bastardo _will pay. Shhhh." Nylara whispered the girl trying to calm her while glaring at the thug leader.

Minutes later when the young woman, whose name was Maria, recovered a bit from the nightmare she had experienced, Nylara handed her a tube of medigel and saw with a glance how Jax entered the room. "Hey girl do you see him?" She asked signaling the geth. At her nod she continued "Go with him I have to ask some questions to our friend here. And don't worry _ragazza _he will answer for his crimes."

After the girl leave, the room lost several dozen degrees and the glare that was given to the warehouse leader, was so frost and full of venom that if he wouldn't be paralized by the stasis field he would have screamed like a girl and tried to run from the room, it didn't matter if it was through a door, a window or even the wall.

"Let's put some rules, ok?" She rhetorically asked while unsheathing her favourite knife, the one with the fang of a varren, of her back. "First, I ask questions and you answer. Second, for each wrong answer you will lose a limb, starting by that one in the middle of your legs. Third rule, if you don't have more limbs and I don't have mi info I will start doing more painfull things. Are we clear?"

The only answer she could recieve with the man being held by the stasis was the widening of his eyes, followed by a stream of liquid going down into his bed.

She wrinkled her nose at the display. "Disgusting."

"Ok. First question. How many warehouses do the gang owns."

Maria left the building guarded by the mech, thanking God the vengeful angel that was send to help her, with some earsplitting screams being heard from a recently broken window. Upon hearing that she couldn't help the dark smirk that appeared on her face.

_That will teach you asshole._

_**0o0o0o0**_

**2177 – October – Shuttle to Earth.**

His pitch black eyes observed the commercial shuttle in which he was traveling to take a contract in the home world of the new species introduced into the galactic community. The humans.

Rumors said that they were a belligerent species, and since they had the unfortunate 'honor' to make First Contact with the turians, who were the armada of the Citadel Council, there was a lot of them who were extremely xenophobics.

He was snapped out of his musings when a loud voice was heard through the ship intercom. "Attention to all passangers. The shuttle will be landing in five minutes in the Californian's spaceport. Please take all of your belongings, we do not responsabilize for any bag, datapad, omnitool or other items left in the shuttle. We hope that you enjoy your stay."

His mind wandered to his new employer and to the first job that he would take at his now freelance career so he could atone to the only murders he regreted in his long career as an assassin, he in fact was caught in that memory.

_Pitch black room. Stained profusely with batarian blood. The three leaders from the attack of her wife chained to the wall. A table filled with intruments of torture. Most of them covered in blood. His body reacting only by instict, his soul being trapped in the grief of her dead wife. He went to the table and picked up a scalpel. He walked to the prisoner of the left, the one who had already los one of his four eyes. He crounched so he could be at eye level. He proceeded to- _

He was gratefully snapped out of his memory by the loud speakers announcing that they were already docked in the extremely loud city. He picked up his bag, that only carried his modified Mantis sniper rifle, his twin pistols, his reliable SMG, some changes of clothes and his emergency stealth device.

_I really don't need it _he thought looking at it _but you never now when an unexpected situation incapacitates your own body and prevents yourself of using the techniques teached by the hanar._

His throwing knives where all strapped to some hidden pockets in his clothes and after briefly checking them he was ready to grab the reigns of his life so he could achieve atonement.

Thane Krios stepped out of the shuttle, looking at the busy spaceport, subconsciously looking for posible structural weaknesses and escape points in case of a hasty retreat. He took a deep breath wandering if the humans new the paradise they have in here having an arid weather in one of their biggest spaceports.

To a normal civilian, he would be quite a sight for their sore eyes, that was if you at least 'tolerated' other species. He was 6 foot tall, and his scales where from a very dim shade of green, making you think of a fresh blade of grass. The top of his head, where his scaly skin finished abruptly folding into the back of his head was from a more faded shade of green that depending of the angle of light, it appeared as either dark green, mixed with a very dark sapphire blue or a very dim shade of gray. He wore a tight leather undersuit, and an ample black leather jacket equipped with kinetic barriers.

Gathering his thoughts he decided to go to his hotel and then to visit his new employer. He didn't know why, but he felt that what he would discover in this mission will somehow change a lot of things in his life.

And his insticts were never wrong.

_**0o0o0o0**_

Thane was sitting in a chair in his small room. His head was bowed, his hands clasped, his eyes closed and his mind focused on praying and relieving happier times. He was like that for several minutes until he was snapped out of his thoughts by a loud beep in his omnitool signaling an incoming call.

He opened his eyes and pressed the correct button in his omnitool.

"Yes?" He incquired in his usual raspy and low voice.

"Krios, meet me in the 'Spinnig Nebula' its a restaurant located between the spaceport and your hotel. Do you remember it?" A gruff vioce asked.

His mind flashed. A two floor building. Bright neon lights showing the name of the place. A tough looking bouncer standing at the door checking people for their reservations. Expensive looking tables and chairs displayed through a bulletproof window.

"Yes" He answered a second later

"Good, come here now, we don't want people suspecting from a large stay in your hotel. I will upload a pass to your omnitool so the bouncer direct you to my table." The voice instructed.

"Of course. I will be there shortly." Thane answered and finished the call.

Minutes later the assassin was strolling through the crowded streets, looking for every single place he could pinpoint that will serve him for ambushes, fleeing or simply where he could be surprised by hidden atackers. You could never be too careful in this field of work, specially if your name was Thane Krios. After some minutes of silent walk that were passed by watching amused as how people do a double take about seeing an alien and specifically a drell, he arrived to the expensive restaurant and went directly to the bouncer.

The bouncer tensed when he saw him approaching and his hand darted to his side brushing his pistol. Thane simply raised an eye ridge and continued his approach while showing his omnitool waiting to be scanned.

The grunt eyed him warily as he scanned his omnitool. A look of surprise appeared on his face as he was rewarded with an affirmative beep from his scanner and his face adopted an apologetic look as his hand inmediately left his strapped pistol.

"Uh... sorry about that... You know we are not a fan of al- different species just... sorry." He mumbled while fidgeting at the thought of endangering a posible customer and the resulting cut from his payment.

"Don't worry about it, it's your job after all." Thane replied smilling.

The bouncer relaxed at both, his assurance that he wouldn't be reported for being an idiot and the safety from her credit chit. "Continue through this door, Sam will show you your table Mr. Krios."

"Thank you." Thane nodded politely and went through the door. When he entered the place, he was inmediately noticed by the four staff members who acomodated different customers. The three female members where openly appraising him while gawking. while the male, who he deduced it was Max, stared at him for some seconds before he remembered his job and went to greet him while snapping his fingers so the females snapped out of their daze.

"Welcome to the 'Spinning Nebula' sir, can you please show me your omnitool so I can take you to your table?" He asked with a genuine smile and a cheerful mood.

"Of course" Thane answered with a bit of amusement coloring his voice as he heard the groans and mutters of painful bodily harm promised to Max because he 'stealed' the 'sexy lizard'.

Max simply smirked at the antics of her coworkers and casually stated "You know that he can hear you girls, right?" Comment that was followed by some seconds of silence and a sudden blush from the three females which Thane couldn't help but to find adorable. Maybe this specie would be great for the future of the galaxy. Who knows maybe he would find some suitable human woman that can be his siha and share the special place of Irikah in his heart before he dies.

"Follow me sir." The young man said getting him out of his current train of thought. Feeling a moment of boldness Thane glanced at the three young ladies and winked at them provoking another round of fierce blushes and some giggles.

Max leaded his new patron through some crowded tables, watching amused and with some jelausy how he was getting open gawking stares from all of the dining females. When he arrived at the designated booth, he was a bit surprised that the scaly alien walking besides him was invited to a VIP table.

"Here it is sir. Have a pleasant evening." He said with a smile. He made a move to go to his post when a scaly hand find his way to his shoulder.

"Thank you." Thane said sliping a credit chit to the hand of the young man.

When he was entering the VIP booth, he heard a surprised sound in his back, probably because Max checked the credit chit and discovered that he was rewarded with 250 credits. One hell of a tip but thanks to Thane's field of work and his meager tastes he was quite well endowed of funds.

The man greeting him in the booth, was a stern looking one. Judging by how his hair started decoloring Thane thought that his employer was in his late forties or in his early fifties. He had some steel colored eyes, a crooked nose and a severe expresion on his face.

Thane bowed his head slightly in acknowledgement and seated at the chair signaled by the man's hand. He was watched carefully by the man who was seated in front of him. Finally the man nodded as if he just passed a test. He extended his hand in a classic human gesture wich Thane reciprocated.

"Krios, nice to meet you. They said that you are the best in your line of work, for now I'm inclined to believe so." His interlocutor said in a gruff voice.

"They informed you well, I'm well known in all Citadel space if you have the right connections. However I don't expect a new employer to believe rumors, my policy is to simply show my skills to possible new employers and see if I pleased their tastes so I can get hired again. However I expect that you know my new sets of regulations right?"

"Yes." The stern looking man replied "It's curious how an assassin only want to kill dirty people."

"It's about how some 'dirty people' as you put it just destroyed your life and you decide to use your work against them." The drell answered darkly with a hint of steel in his voice af is daring him to continue with the conversation.

"Uh, I understand." The man remained thoughtful gazing at the drell, considering what kind of shit happened that can cause a normally calm alien to get vengative and dark, as a waitress entered the booth leaving some holomenus and waiting for their orders.

Thane gazed at the food displayed by the menu for some seconds until he ordered a good looking fishlike food called 'lobster' that reminded him of the Tarakle one off the best dishes a hanar can offer you in Kahje. His employer decided to eat something called pizza and they ordered two bottles of mineral water. With the food ordered, the waitress left but not before a final glance to Thane.

His employer saw this and with an amused tone said "You know it seems that you make a hell of an appearance on some human females."

"Indeed." Thane said with a smirk.

The levity of the moment lasted some seconds before they both went back to their work moods.

"So Krios, do you want to hear you job now or do you want to wait until we have finished eating?"

"I think that it will be best if we get rid of the work related things first so we can enjoy the meal without having some external thoughts ruining such a calm moment of our lifes."

His employer lifted a brow and nodded at the sagely words. "Ok your target is the head of one of the local gangs, The Green Irish Leaves."

His explanation was politely interrupted as Thane raised a hand slightly signaling his desire to ask something, at his nod the drell asked "Excuse me but what is Irish?"

"Irish is how people were called if they were born in Ireland, but some decades ago Ireland, Scotland and England joined and formed the British Front. However this didn't finish the traditions since they are people still calling themselves by their birthplaces even when they aren't called like that anymore."

"Thanks." Thane replied intrigued with human history. Perhaps he would read about it later.

"This gang, was the one responsible of blowing one square mile with one of the most potent bombs created that is not nuclear."

"One square mile?" Thane said darkly "I will be glad to take this job."

"Good, however there is a complication."

At this Thane simply raised an eyebrow.

"This last months, the gang has been losing warehouses, companies and assets one by one. It is unknown if it is a new gang taking over their place or if it is a freelancer. The only proof of this attacks are a lot of dead bodies, either way killed with bullets, knife wounds or biotics, pilled in the biggest room of the place and they are ubicated behind a blood soaked raven feather. The usual scans from the authorities reveal some spent thermal clips, blank security footage and wiped databases." He paused so his new employee could take the information.

"So, someone is wiping out this gang sistematically. Hmm, the job seems to be the one of either an assassin that is tech savvy or a very careful gang. I will lean to the first option however, it is curious how it resembles with my usual standars towards a 'crime scene'."

"Yes. We have the location of the gang leader he is terrified and can't leave the country due to his criminal record so he is in hiding with his top three surviving liutenants in a house surrounded by three of his warehouses, forming an almost inpenetrable wall. Your job is to kill him and if you find this assassin or the gang you can kill it/them too if you want. For the gang leader you will recieve fifty thousand credits and if you decided to kill our ghost you will recieve the same amount of money."

"Ok." Thane said nodding "Will you provide me a map of the zone?" He asked interesed, since iformation is half of the battle.

"Yes, here it is" He said fiddling with his omnitool for some seconds. Seconds later Thane received a map of the place and studied it a bit until he heard the waitress coming with the food, wich caused him to close his omnitool and inmediately put a small smile on his face. His employer eyed him warily for some seconds until he understand what caused him to put that façade, and he too adopted a smile and waited until the waitress left after serving them their food.

"Shall we?" Asked Thane encompassing their steamy dishes.

"Of course." Replied his employer.

_**0o0o0o0**_

Four days have passed since his dinner with his new employer. He was sitting in a vent that overlooked at the room which was used at this moment as a safeplace by the fearful gang leader and his three henchman. He had observed this place for the last four days, until he knew the patrol roasters like the palm of his hand, and decided that tonight it was the night that this men would pay for his crimes at the feet of his god.

Bowing his head he softly muttered his usual prayers in such a low voice that only another drell or a turian could listen.

_Amonkira, lord of hunters. Grant me the strength to strike at my prey with precision and haste. Let my actions represent your fearsome power._

_Arashu, goddess of motherhood and protection. Grant me your blessing for I will walk among the innocent. I beg that they will not be harmed by my deeds._

_Kalihira, goddess of oceans and the afterlife. Should tonight be the night that my soul embraces the deep, forgive me of my sins._

He waited for some seconds thinking of the best ways in which they would die without sending some signal and after he decided of using stealth, he was ready.

He silently went out of the vent and melded with the shadows. But before he could leap into action he saw something that stopped him in his tracks.

One second before he went into battle sleep, a single lighting from the storm crossed the pitch black night, showing for a split of second a hooded figure in the other corner of the room at the back of his targets. That split of second was what Thane needed to see a hood shadowing the female's face, a smirk in her pouty lips, her stunning body covered in a tight black leather jacket, two pistols strapped at her thighs, a sniper rifle showing at her lower back, two hilts from what seemed to be knives or short swords showing at either side of her head, probably strapped between her shoulderblades and a metallic cilinder on her hand, that Thane quickly recognized as a detonator.

Before the shadows reclaimed that body he saw how her smirk widened and he was suddenly aware that she too had seen his body and was aware about why he was here.

In the silence that followed the impresive ball of lighting displayed by the storm that was whipping the quiet night it was heard a simple noise that would cause a very strong reaction. A single noise that everyone who has in their lives get some explosive urges would know.

_Click_

Three giant explosion colored the night, showering with light the house as three giant fireballs erupted from the three now destroyed warehouses. The noise caused by the single action of putting two pounds of pressure in one buttom was enough to stun unsuspecting people and it was probably heard by the normal citizens, since this small bunker was ubicated in the outskirts of California. The noise was the distraction the female shadow needed to leap into action, stunning Thane by the quickness displayed by her and by her set of skills.

She jumped at the back of one of the liutenants -the one that was near her position- who had shrinked a bit by the explosion, summersaulting into the air, she quickly put two bullets from a recently unstrapped silenced pistol at one of the henchman's head, leaving him with two sanguinolent pools instead of eyes, in the same fraction of second her left hand went to the hilt of one of her knives and threw it at the throat of another thug. Twisting in midair but before landing, her body lit with black and white flames and biotically send the last henchman, the one that was crouched, to a wall with breakneck speed, skewering him after throwing her remaining knife that sticked the body to the wall by the heart.

Thane was surprised, he had never saw that kind of biotics, in fact the whole assasination left him speechless at the cleanliness of it, it seemed that this woman, could rivalize with some of the best pupils from the Assassin's guild on Kahje. But what surprised him most was that display of biotics, specifically the colour of it, it raised some questions that Thane would fine pleasure in answering them by piercing together bits of information.

The gang leader hearing noises and three thumps swiveled his body to be greeted with a scene that could be taken of an horror movie. Aodh, his brother was driven into a wall with the hilt of a knife sticking out of his chest and his head bowed with blood leaking from the corner of his lips, Émer was with another knife sticked in his throat and with his dead eyes glaring at him as if he was blaming him of the early arrival of the grim reaper and Kelly, her fiancée, was in the ground gazing at the ceiling through bloodied eyes. Among the three bodies a shadowed figure was standing and was slowly advancing towards him. He let out a scream of fear and tried to take a pistol but was interrupted by a motion of the figure that lifted him in the air. Scaring the hell out of him for the colour of her biotics.

With a sweet voice, laced with venom and steel she approached him while saying "You were the one who detonated the bomb months ago?"

At his silence the figure smirked and casually took her pistol again from her thigh holster "Hun, I know how to torture a man during a lot of time without compromising your body... too badly."

The gang leader gulped with fear and screamed with pain as the biotics holding one of his hands tightened to a point that if she decided to add a single newton of power the bones of the hand would broke all at the same time.

Thane watched mesmerized how she conducted her interrogation without injuring the man and pushing him psychologically to a point that he will either break and spill the information or force her to start introcuding bodily harm. She wasn't an amateur, not at all.

The drell watched as the biotic bonds tighten in the other hand and in the left foot of the gang leader, causing him to scream in pain.

"Okay, Okay I will talk, just please... please..." The man whimpered in pain.

She allowed the biotic bonds to regain their normal force, just lifting him in the air and allowing him to feel some relief in his bruised hands and foot.

"So...?" She asked boring her hooded eyes in him, sending him an involuntary shiver through his spine.

"We where contacted two days before and paid two hundred thousand credits to blow the bomb outside the arm's shop of Maglieri."

Thane noted how her body tensed at the mention of the name. _So this Maglieri was a loved person, we're not that different, except that she didn't spent days killing them._

"Who was the contact?" Asked the hooded figure, tightening the bonds in every single inch of the body of the gang leader, causing him to scream in pain.

"A-Annabella Whitewind" The figure said as he screamed again thanks to the unbelieving pain his body was suffering, it fel as if his body was being pressed by a train, but being controlled so it wouldn't kill him.

Thane saw how the figure faltered and dropped the body of the man. "Mo-Mother?" She whispered with a horrorized voice.

Thane was surprised at the amount of sorrow, horror and pain conveyed in that single whisper. He was about to take a step to confort her when he saw the fallen figure move his hand to his pistol and guessing his goal, he commanded his biotics to come to his body while he unholstered one of his pistols.

The man yelped in surprise and screamed in fear as he saw the scaly figure lift his pistol and fired twice, silencing him forever.

The drell approached the female hooded figure and putted a hand in her shoulder, which instantly tensed.

"Are you here to kill me?" She asked in a pained voice. Thane noticed that the pain was genuine but wasn't fooled as he noticed how one of her hands went to a pistol and how she was shifting her center of gravity slowly so she could lash out in case of an affirmative answer.

"No." He said in his usual raspy voice.

He felt how her shoulder sagged briefly "So you were contracted to kill him?"

"Indeed." Thane paused for some seconds allowing her to regain her bearings "Are you okay? You seemed quite shaken by the name the man provided you." He asked politely.

"No I'm not okay, I just find out that my mother blew my father's house so she could kill us both, but I was saved by his quick thinking."

She sighed and adressed someone that I couldn't see "Jax lower your sniper he will not kill me."

"Affirmative." Thane heard behind him and spun quickly just to see a geth dissarming his sniper rifle. He was caught offguard at a geth ambushing him and he notice that he has his optic covered with someone that looked like some sunglasses, geth version.

His attention quickly went back to the female figure as she said "Sorry about that, you can't be sure about no one, specially when you are looked by every single cop between New York and California for killing some assholes."

"I understand." He nodded in agreement "I'm Thane Krios, one of the most renowned assasins in Citadel space."

She eyed him up and he get the impression that she was quirking an eyebrow "You aren't the sexiest men in the galaxy perhaps?" She asked with her voice full of mirth.

His lis quirked at that "Perhaps." He just said smirking "You aren't badlooking either I have to say, at least what someone can see with your armor."

"Thank you." She replied while moving her hands to her hood "But perhaps it is better if we see each other face to face?" She finished her sentence pulling her hood back, showing her head.

Thane was stunned at the beauty displayed by this human. Her hair was pilled in the hood in a bun, which she quickly disarmed. Letting her silver colored wavy hair to flow down until it was at the middle of her back, her face was shadowed by the natural darkness of the room being lighted with the casual bolts of lightening strolling across the air.

However her most striking feature were her eyes, displaying her colour at circles, fading more and more until it reached her pupil with four white dots in each cardinal point and with her eyes starting at a deep blue at the outer circles going through the shades of the blue skies from Kahje to the aquamarine colours of the coast of where he was trained as an assassin, until the eyes where white before the black of her pupil.

She noticed her speechless state and smirked at his stare. "C'mon we need wo go out of here before some cops start swarming the place, I don't want to kill innocents. We can talk as we walk, or you can continue staring at my ass, your choice." She said as she was going at the door and swayed her hips at the end of her sentence to mark her point, causing Thane's red scales at his throat to redden even more with embarassment.

Sighing to himself about how his resolve was faltering with the accursed human females, he followed her as the geth disappear in mid air with what seemed an advanced stealth generator and started following the woung woman.

"By the way my name is Nylara Whitewind, or as the press is calling me 'The Blood Raven'" She said as she glanced at him from the top of her shoulder.

_A/N: If some characters seem a bit OOC, don't worry it was entirely my fault ;)._

_I want to thank again to Elizabeth Carter and Myetel for allowing me to use their Asari and turian culture respectively._


	4. Mindoir Pt 1

_Here it is the forth chapter, too bad that for outside reasons it is only half of it :s_

_A/N: I want to apologize for the delay, but in the first two weeks I was MIA I played three different handball tournaments (The first two we won them, but in the last one, in the semifinal I was the target of a very bad move by one of the defense and the goalkeeper and ended with a shattered wrist, and to give an even more sourer taste, we ended second in that tournament)._

_My shattered wrist was why in one week I only managed to complete this (I already have 4 pages and I managed to do five more). The other week of waiting was because my betas took all week to give me this thing corrected, so I think that when I finish a chapter I will post it and wait for my beta's revision AFTER posting it._

_Right now I have more or less two or three pages of the next chapter, writing with only my left hand is very hard, but it's not stopping me. I really wish medigel exists T.T it will let me be happy for having both of my hands._

_Now that I'm thinking, I think that it will be funny to get every metal detector ringing with my wrist *Evil snicker* _

**2180 – January – Somewhere in the galaxy.**

She observed as the image of rushed blue lights caused by FTL travel and nebulas at the background danced through the pitch black void that was the space.

She was seated in a confortable chair, that was made from the finest cheetah leader, with her feet perched lazily at a metal box ubicated at the left of the ship's main controls, the ones that allowed her baby to fly through the sky. She was wearing some tight looking shorts and some lightgrey tight tank tops, that hugged the soft curves of her body while at the same time emphasizing her well built stomach. She had an olive tanned body and some very recognizable tatoos in her arms. The vine and thorn black and white pattern that she had learned to recognize as unique for some special kind of biotics.

They weren't normal tatoos, in fact in the three years that had passed, she discovered that the tatoos weren't made of ink, but they were made by her own biotic energies, the named energies where so strong that they marked the flesh forever, thus showing this special kind of tatoos. Nevermind, she had to stop reminiscing about already extincted times and continue gazing at herself at the reflective window of the cockpit. Finishing her very casual outfit, it was a very nice ankle bracelet that resembled a wyvern coiled up through her soft but powerful muscles, resting in a safe place, while having the tip of it's tail pointed upwards, signaling that he was aware of danger and that he could lash out in a split of second.

She was barefooted, since the only things she liked wearing where her lightly padded combat boots that went from the tip of her toes to the mid of her shins or her three inch stiletto high-heeled shoes. And neither were appropiate for her very casual wear, or how it was named technically in every single Alliance ship, her workout wear. She liked wearing them since they let her convey a very confident nature and at the same time show that she could rip someone to shreds without needing a gun or shields.

At this time, however her mind wasn't caught in the trivialities of her attire, it was caught deep into her perfect memory relieving the best moments of the last three years, where she lived a lot of hellish adventures and missions.

_The weeks passed one after the other. She was introduced to the political games played by the people of the Citadel, how they cared very little about normal people. She was briefed about the Shadow Broker and how he/she was the most dangerous person of the galaxy, since he/she could manipulate the governments to start an intergallactic war just for shits and giggles. _

_They usually discussed about their stealth techniques, and their sparring sessions where what she treasured most, since she had to really force herself to try to reach the level of quickness and strenght from his partner. The first week was finished with the amazing score of seven sparring sessions losed of seven. As the days passed, she could feel how her body was acclimatazing to the toughness of the excercise, allowing the sparring session to be larger and far more interesting._

_She regretted the decition of part ways with him, but she had to make a name of her own, and that couldn't be achieved being the helper of another assassin. The Broker gave her some missions to test her, that followed her strict set of morals, and as he saw that she was good at it, continued to pay her for killing of stealing missions. Some time later, she had met with a rather dangerous looking krogan warlord, that had three angry red scars running through the right side of his face, with instructions from the Broker to help him. _

_He was at first dissapointed of her due to her human nature but decided to give her a chance by the reputation she was building and by the morals she held close while doing her job, not so different to his morals as a bounty hunter. His opinion quickly changed from indifferent to a friendly one, or as he named it 'respect between warriors'. This 'respect' didn't interfere with their usual bantering or their drinking contests – which hardened her liver since she decided that it wouldn't be fair if she didn't drink Ryncol, the well known krogan drink that could melt lesser people's livers, action that profundly impressed the krogan who after that time started calling 'friend' or just use her first name if they where in private, since he didn't want to alert people about the real name of her partner –. She remembered how he decided to tag with her for some time, and how he was amused at her sneaking missions in which she was contracted, either by the Broker or by wealthy people, to recover some stolen artwork, whiche he ended using him as a truck to transport the art and some 'gifts' that wouldn't be missed, since they were stolen first._

_The vaults she had to enter where impressive or simply dull and boring. Some where as simple as a print scan and others – her favourites – where equipped with voice and eye sensors. Even one of the vault's owner seemed to like old twentieth century's movies, since she had to dodge moving lasers, pushing at its maximum her flexibility and and strenght of her upper body. The krogan warlord liked those missions since watching her struggle with some tech amused him and reinforced his theory that if you blow up something was quicker and simpler._

_That friendly partnership lasted some months. They were nearly unstoppable with their tactics, their firepower and their biotics. He had been really amused at how she announced tot he world who made the work with her 'call sign' a raven feather soaked with the blood of the dead, and appraised her telling with admiration that she had a quad for not hiding, and telling the mercs that they either watch their asses or they would be blown to peaces. After some time he decided to copy her saying that would carry fear to the heart of his enemies. _

_During the time they worked together they where feared as the team of the Raven and the Crocodile, since he left a crocodile teeth usually stucked in the head of the leader of the gang or of the corrupt asshole they where tasked to kill, showing that he was as subtle as always._

_He finally left one day after he decided that he needed to go to collect some bounties again, so he could fell under the radar and so he wasn't viewed as one of the Broker's muscular lapdogs, thought that make him gag, since he wouldn't be no one's follower, just a freelancer._

_She had listened to his reasons and decided that they where really good and decided to copy her, since she needed to get some R&R and had to check her little 'surprise' for the Reapers, while at the same time continuing learning from the prothean voices on her head and pursuing some goals that wouldn't serve her at the battlefield but it would help her to keep her life varied. She spent a couple of months relaxing and reviewing everything on her new base, until she recieved a message with a mission she couldn't refuse and that was a challenge, her favourite._

_She had heard across the galaxy the rumors of some demons that were personified by asari, and after some digging and some help from the Broker she discovered about the Ardat-Yakshis. The mission she recieved was from a friendly information broker, that passed her the tip about a mercenary outpost controlled by an escaped 'Demon of the night winds' – Or Ardat-Yakshi – and that was giving him some problem._

_This kind of asari always made her curious. It was mainly because they somehow 'acquired' with a birth deffect, the ability to kill people through normal mind melds, frying their nervous systems and destroying their brains from the inside out, showing to medics that weren't briefed about them, signs from either a stroke or a brain hemorrhage, covering their tracks smoothly. _

_One of the most freightening thing she had learned about them was that with each kill they were made stronger. This mission confronted her with a seven hundred old Ardat-Yakshi, it was the oldest known among the living and it was rumored to be almost impossible of killing, except for some of the most powerful justicars. So Nylara naturally decided to take the challenge head-on._

_The assault to the keep was bloody, difficult and extremely exhilarating. She enjoyed it the whole way, having to use her mind and wits at every corner so she wouldn't be overwhelmed. The final confrontation with the Ardat-Yakshi was one so difficult that when it finished, she was ubicated at a room which had a thirty meter distance with the main room where the battle happened, thanks to a final biotic push, courtesy of the now dead Ardat-Yakshi. She remembered deciding to remain at the floor so she could regain her breath, instead of going again at the room and claim something as a trophy – She remembered seeing a beautiful painting in that room, she hoped that it survived –, room that was destroyed beyond recognition. _

_She felt proud of herself and limped some minutes later to the place where she killed the vampire-like legend of asari and left her signature raven feather, noticing inmediately that she was being watched by someone. _

_As she turned she watched as an old asari with some ornaments on her head ,a justicar she recognized, gazed at her aching body evenly. The staring contest continued for some seconds until the justicar said that she didn't know if either kill her by the reputation of an assassin and thief that Nylara earned for the time on business or if respecting her by killing such a fearsome opponent. _

_She was tired so she answered with a simple, "Look lady, meld with me check my memories and if you find ONE single thing that shows that I have to be killed by your code, just do it. I have a broken arm, seven broken ribs a heavy limp in a leg, half of my chest with third degree burns, some pierced muscles and one hell of a headache thanks to the thrill that it is a personalized amplifier connected to your brain that is overheated. Oh and I think I have internal bleeding so either kill me fast or let me live and help me to my ship so I could heal. I really don't know how I'm walking or even alive but I'm not complaining." _

_The justicar was surprised at this words and decided to meld with her, meld that show her every single thing the young woman endured during her life, including her efforts against the Reapers. Bowing her head in though, she offered the hybrid woman in front of her the opportunity of working with her until she was tired of it, time where she could leave without someone trying to kill her. Nylara thought about that and decided to do it, since working with an asari that had such a nice body didn't seemed bad at all._

_She spent the best part of two years living with the justicar, asari that had inmediately attracted her by the moral code she hold – practically the same one she wanted to keep in her jobs – her regal appearance and her sense of compassion towards one unlucky human. After some very insistent eighteen months, she finally get her prize when she stripped the old asari from her mental barriers, moment where the asari decided to bond with her as a mate, saying that they would enjoy the moments given by the Godess, until she had fulfilled her mission, which would allow her to take a large holiday from the justicars, so she could be with her 'little Raven' as the asari had named her. _

_However every single happy moment had to end, sooner or later and she found herself with a lead from Jax to an Alliance colony named Mindoir, where a very hidden prothean station was founded by some of their sleeper agents. Lead that obliged her to say goodbye to her new founded love and to embark her father's ship to go to the colony, that was at this moment at a day and a half distance._

Nylara sighed and stopped her sudden train of thought to the past. Thinking about Wrex, her good krogar buddy and his scars, made her think about the scars she sustained at the three year period of intense work. The minor scars gained from things like gunshots or stab marks faded with time thanks to her prothean improved skin, however deep wounds and other things like that left some marks in her body.

She had some new scars adorning her body, the most noticeable was the one that went from her left eyebrow to the place that was between her right cheek and her right eye, a damn slash caused by a spike of a hungry varren in a raid made to a Blood Pack slave facility from his times with Wrex. That slash nearly costed her the sight from both of her eyes, and instead of leaving an agry red scar that would have splitted her face in two parts, it had left a thin pink line crossing her face. Scar that caused her to thank the prothean enchantments she had in her body each time she see it at a mirror.

A large piece of her skin ubicated on the left part of her stomach, was more decolored thant the rest and had some faint scarring tissue, because of a very nice explosion caused by the lovely Ardat-Yakshi she chased. Finally she had some deep teeth marks in her right leg between her hip to her knee, it was a gift from a young varren that had gotten playful during another Blood Pack raid, varren that tried to take a piece of her leg as a souvenir, however she had fortunately, for the sake of her leg, stopped him with a stasis field before he ripped a large chunk of her, allowing the justicar who was accompanying her to kill the beast with a well placed warp and a gunshot.

She sighed, and thought with some happiness at the other new marks from her body, the ones that gave her some joy since they where optional, her new tatoos. She had an angel tatooed to her back, the angel was quite peculiar, since it had her head bowed, allowing her cascading hair to flow from her head to her hips, barely covering it breasts, with her wings spreaded in a way that the point of them ended in the small amount of muscle ubicated between her shoulderblades and her shoulder. The wings where consistent with the colours of her arm tatoos, showing a black wing in one side and a white one in the other. The angel was huge, taking every single inch of place located at the middle of her back and its armored feet where posed at the beginning of the curve between her back and her hip, with two curved daggers being held loosely by her hands at her sides.

She also had a chinese dragon going from her right ankle to her knee, a red rose coiling through her navel and some italian words inked to her free skin at her sides, mostly as a reminder of her culture, of her home and of her father.

Nylara picked herself up from the chair and strecthed a bit, making some of the bones on her back to pop almost silently. "How much until we arrive Katarina?" She asked at the air.

An hollographic figure of a cyan colored asary with her eyes of a shade lightpurple, that was near the one that was seen in Elysium at dawn, appeared. The figure paused for some miliseconds and answered efficiently "ETA to the relay is of 23 hours and scheduled arrival using advanced stealth system is calculed to be four hours after that."

"Thank you Kat" Nylara simply answered, and found that her mind was wandering again at her past, specifically at the moment that she discovered that her father had left a ship for her. It was old but well kept and it was equipped with some disruptor torpedoes and some normal guns.

_She had used it as first as an exploditionary ship and claimed the prothean's homeworld nebula as the base of operations for the construction of the new space station and fleet, since she remembered that there where some asteriods belts near some of the planets in the nebula that were very rich in resources._

_The ship entered refitment at a geth space station as an old war veteran that still had some teeth and when she was finished, she couldn't stop but gawk openly for some minutes at it. _

_The ship was painted with some reflecting black paint that had modeled in it some kind of whirpools, it was designed like that so they could fool scanners even at plain sight. It had advanced thrusters, coolant system, a newly experimental drive core that was made for small ships like that or even fighters that allowed it an insane movility and evne more features that where amazing. _

_Her baby had also been changed aesthetically, instead of looking like a heavily kicked puppy it looked now like one of the ancient birds of pray from the protheans spreading out their wings. She remembered that this birds had four wings, two bigger and tow that where smaller and that where supporting the first pair. It also had a tail and a mouth full of sharp teeth. She didn't know how, but the geth had made her ship similar to the bird, and it was simply breathtaking. _

_Her 'baby' now had some GARDIAN turrets for incoming projectiles or fighters, disruptor torpedoes, missiles and some normal Alliance mass effect slug weapons. Seeing the amount of weapons contained by the ship, she couldn't help but glance uneasily at it asking how in the Goddess name it could hold so many weapons. She had chosen then it's name, since it had to have a new name for its new asskicking figure, chosing for it the name of "Ikran", honouring the bird of pray that gave her ship her new figure._

She was snapped out of her daze by her AI that was looking at her with some concern, and decided that if she had been caught already in two of her travels to the past, she needed to shut her eyes for some hours. "Ship's yours Kat, behave yourself." She said winking at her virtual friend, and as she was walking up to her cabin, she heard her smartass response "You are such a bad person Raven I was going to host a party of AI's tonight in the ship, but I guess that we could leave the music at a reasonable level, however if you found some spilled data at a corner don't touch it, you don't know what kind of AI expel it."

Nylara didn't said anything but a low chuckle was heard from the direction she was headed for. As she walked through the ship, she founded it odd that the geth decided to leave the spare rooms, they were ten different small rooms and a small cargo bay where the ship's gym was ubicated.

She entered her room after a boring trip through the elevator, and stretched a bit so she could loosen a bit the muscles that went stiff after some hours sitting in the cockpit. As she finished, her eyes settled in the five paintings that where adorning her room.

A raven that was flying from a tree, whose plumage was from scarlet red, sapphire blue, sun coloured orange, grasslike green, pure white and amethyst purple. Each colour resembling the different types of blood – Or fluid in case of the geth – encountered through the galaxy. A view from a ship of a planet that was shaped like a massive archipielago, it sky was clean and pure, the waters varied from shades of light aquamarine, to deep blue, light and deep purple and some green tones, allowing an hypnotic effect through it waters and some amount of ruins was seen in the largest islands. It was the Prothean homeworld.

A single old asari was walking regally through a broken warehouse, bodies and bulletmarks everywhere, the telltale glow from biotic energies showing lightly on her body, her skintight leather body suit showing her amount of confidence, and her brilliant ornaments located at her head showed her status. A justicar, but not just any justicar. Her lover. A middle aged man, who had striking blue eyes, bright black hair, a slightly crooked nose, a small but permanent scowl on his face, and a demeanor that informed that he wasn't a man to toy with. He was leaning loosely with his back at a tall metal table watching with satisfaction a sniper rifle, the one she had in her small armory, and with a small quirk on his lips. His father, may the Goddess always watch him in the void.

The last painting was an image from one of the few sights that managed to take her breath in this galaxy, the 50.000 ships from the migrant fleet going in a close formation, showing their helmsman's discipline and their skill.

The first four paintings had as a signature a small flying raven while the forth one was an original obtained when she robbed a black market's painting dealer. She was proud of the first ones, since they where of her own creation, the first one it camed straight out of her mind, when she was thinking of her nickname, and the other three where memories that where engraved into her mind, and that she decided that she had to put them on canvas.

Smilling faintly as she gazed at the paintings of her father and lover, she went to the bed and after some seconds which she used to relax herself into her ample bed, she felt as the darkness consumed her, sending her to a quiet sleep.

_**0o0o0o0**_

Nylara gazed calmly at the planet that was slowly showing more and more things in its surface, as her ship was coming closer. She was seated in her pilot chair, as relaxed as someone during one of the Consort's massages. Mindoir. The sight of the planet was really beautiful. She was trapped in the memory that she had when she had once taken a job there.

_Nylara was standing leaning her back to a tree, gazing at her surroundings. It was such a pure worlds, clean air, big green trees that could easily be one thousand year old. A sky that had some striking shades of pink and orange at dawn, turning a normal daybreak into a breathtaking sight that could even stop the furious charge from the rhinos that had been transported to the planet so they could adapt to it. The planet was full of life, fact that make it one of the most important farming colonies located at the Attican Traverse and one of the most beautiful sights of the galaxy, the people living in it where farmers, families that wanted a better life of simply people that wanted to enjoy the scenery._

She abandoned the vivid memory with a wistful sigh. Every time she wanted to feel better she only had to remember either Mindoir or her beautiful asari lover, such was the bendition of the perfect memory. However with every bendition comes a curse, and if she was careless,the hybrid could become trapped in painful memories like the state of her body when she finished her fight against the Ardat-Yakshi, or simply the pain it caused her to left her new founded lover in the quest she had of securing the damn galaxy.

"Kat, keep stealthed and pass through their defenses. I'm uploading some coordinates for you to locate and land near it. It is not far from the city so be careful." Nylara said while tapping into her black omnitool.

"Roger that Raven." The synthetic voice answered as the asari like image appeared at her side with her hands clasped at her back in a classic military position. "I will take care of it, you just go to the armory to gather your toys, since I had detected some abnormal radio waves."

The silver haired girl just raised an eyebrow and nodded in confirmation. She got up from her confortable leather chair and went to the armory with a lazy pace, since she had some time before they would dock the _Ikran _in the planet. She was thankful that the ship had a drive core designed for fighters and customized for it. Because, if not the landing and launching would have been very straining for her ship's hull and thrusters.

She entered her third favourite part of the ship, being the first her leather chair where she would wander in the extranet or simply practice her hacking skills with every single thing that would be located ata range from her ship, and the second her bed in her quarters.

Nylara walked to the lockers that where standing stoically at the other side of the room. She didn't understand why the geth had left ten empty lockers, but she certainly wouldn't try to talk to them about it, since it would certainly gave her a headache. Accesing her personal code, she opened the door and gazed lovingly at her other set of babies. Her form-hugging leather armor had changed in those three years, but only in some details. Like for example instead of being picth black, it was just a dark shade of gray, with some silver artwork customizing its otherwise dull form. She had painted with a special armor dyer made from her geth buddies – so the armor wouldn't just wash over the changes thanks to it's nanobots – a skull in her left shoulder and a laughing succubi like demon that had some kind of smoke covering some parts of her body – she certainly didn't want children seeing a naked demon every rare time she walked in her armour in crowded places –. Her recon. hood also had suffered some changes, as it now had a very big raven, like the one on her painting, located in it. The head of the raven was so skilfully made, that in make people think that it's two little eyes would follow you everywhere – If you ever had the chance or misfortune of seeing her – with the rest of the body going through the back of her head and the tail ending just below the neck, with her wings finishing at centimeters from her darkened cheeks.

Her leather trousers and weapons had remained the same in these years, except some scapes in the last ones, and her mid-shin combat boots had to be replazed after one Blood Pack raid when a varren almost bit her both foot. Now she had some black, light combat boots that allowed her a great deal of movement. She also counted with some fingerless black furred gloves.

After some time she had doned her armour and was strapping her weapons in their usual holsters when she heard a very distinctive voice "Raven, we had docked in a clearing located at two hundred meters from the entrance of the underground complex."

"Thanks Kat." Nylara answered sheating her knives in th special compartments in her shoulderblades and checking briefly her biotics and omnitool to see if her armour wouldn't interfere with them.

"You have control of the ship Kat, keep an eye into the colony to see if we had been discovered or something like that."

"Ok Nyly" The AI answered with a smirk and dissappearing from her holographic form.

Nylara scowled at the place where the AI had been located a second before and cursed under her breath for allowing the damned thing to watch her private calls. She wasn't keen to the fact that anyone except 'her sexy matriarch' used that nickname.

Cursing under her breath and thinking of some way to have some payback on the damned AI, she went to the Cargo Hold, which allowed her to walk into the planet instead of jumping eight meters from the airlock. Stepping out of her baby, she took one deep breath of the pure air and smiled, pushing her hood into its place, blocking the sun and any hidden animal the view to her flawless – If you overlooked the thin pink line – face, only letting her plump pouty lips to be seen from it. Lips that weren't embellished with any type of lipstick.

Still smilling, she started to trek through the forest, checking her omnitool for the place where the entrance to the secret complex would be located.

How she liked her life. It had everything you would want, violence, chance to keep nice art stuff, a hot asari and a chance to discover top secret unscratched prothean ruins. What else would a girl want?

_**0o0o0o0**_

The entrance to the complex was amazing. Carved stone pillars stood inside of a natural rock cave. The pillars where engraved with prothean symbols, specifically the ones of secrecy, strenght, time, power and curiously it had the double simbol of royalty.

She remembered how shocked she was when Fel'laran, the 'spirit' she had in her head that was specialized in the culture of the protheans, told her that the Protheans where ruled by an Imperial Family, like the turian Imperator. However the principal difference was that the protheans where a matriarchal society, giving the Imperatrix absolute power of the Empire.

Upon entering the cave, passing between the pillars, she saw mesmerized how it opened to its insides showing a well litted small room. The room had a certain type of elegant air in it while at the same time looking like a rough symbiosis of the human bronze age and the incredible level of tech, purity and cleanness of it. The room was decorated with several paintings and some strange two handed cutting weapons that _somehow _resembled some of the most dangerous things on earth. For example in that corner was a bizarre combination of a scythe with a trident, and over that other corner a handle had attached to it several shuriken-like things with steel – or the Prothean equivalent – showing how dangerous the prothean gladiators could be if they scored at least one hit to their adversary.

Surprised by the great amount of prothean artifacts and art found – and in great state – she continued through the rooms and corridors looking around her and gawking. After checking everything, she would have to 'relocate' a lot of this things into her personal collection in her house in the Prothean homeworld. In fact she really wanted to see it, since the geth had finished it construction two months ago, and she couldn't visit it. But she had been told that Jax had moved her personal art collection to the house. She sighed longing for some R&R. It had been almost twentyfive months of continuos hunting, with one day of rest every month. She certainly didn't envy the justicars.

While she was thinking about her new home and gawking at some of the most detailed artworks, her feet had taken her room by room, until she found her first hitch. A door that was heavily encrypted with some of the most powerful prothean firewalls. Nylara thanked the goddess that Anarien'e had teached her every single prothean trick, if not she would have been at least a month until she could decode part of the firewalls.

Frowning at the implications of a powerful firewall, she quietly prepared her pistols, letting them without their safety and she eased her knives from the scabbards that were integrated into her armor some times so they wouldn't become stuck.

Minutes later, she was struggling against the last node of the firewall and she was rewarded with the satisfying sound of the doors sliding open.

She walked carefully, using every single thing that was teached to her of creeping stealthed while reading one of her pistols. She had advanced some meters when she was startled by a mechanical voice.

"_Life sing detected. Analyzing. Please wait some seconds."_

Nylara was confused and with the head titlted slightly to her right, trying to discern the place from where the voice was coming. She was snapped out of her concentrated state when some green beams materialized around her, caging her in a five feet cage. She watched nervous as the beams where coming closer and closer, until she closed her eyes, not wanting to see what they would do to her.

Some seconds later, she felt tingling sensation followed by a sudden chill, that seemed to came from the southern region of Noveria, reknown by it's deathly temperature of 600°C..

As the chilling sensation abandoned her she opened her eyes tentatively trying to see what hellish things the prothean's had stored for her.

She felt confused when she didn't saw the green beams and swiveled her head from side to side trying to locate them.

"_Analysis complete. Female life form. Biotic. Organic. Doesn't have any mechanic part therefore she is not a husk. Indoctrination signals undetected. Subject can safely advance to the med bay."_

After that the voice shutted up. Nylara was confused. A lot. _Med Bay? _She thought. _What could be stored in a med bay that needs such a deep analysis? This place is getting more confusing. _Warily, she started walking to the door that had opened at the other side of the room.

She entered the med bay slowly, checking every single thing in it looking for something that can be dangerous. The only things that stood out where another door, at the end and a lot of consoles regulating _something._

"_Welcome. Since you had passed the test, Project Renewal will be reactivating after 50179 years delay. Please stand by until the cryo-pod starts deactivating the cryo sleep._

Nylara stood there slack-jawed, a cryo-pod that was 50000 years old?

_No. Fucking. Way. _

She quickly went to the console that was beeping and managed to see it before she remained stunned with wide eyes seeing the holographic screen.

In it a video feed was clearly showing the inside of the giant pod.

Showing a prothean that was in an induced cryo sleep.


	5. Mindoir Pt2

_Here it is! After a while and writing with one hand I would like to present you to the second chapter of Mindoir. Please remember to wear some kind of coat, the writer won't be responsible if your pretty clothes get stained with the following bloodbath._

_Originally I had the chapter finished on sunday, however some idiots – I still don't know who are they, if not Raven would have paid them a visit – somehow pierced the main and the backup internet optical fiber, leaving the entire city without internet for four days._

_Well, I think it's time for the disclaimer. I really wish that I own it... I really do._

_**DISCLAIMER: Don't own. *Snif* *Snif* go to read the chapter while I weep for the universe injustice.**_

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**2180 – January – Prothean cave**

Ashaera Sthrazza was thinking. She found herself doing that a lot, maybe it was because of her brillant idea. Yeah, it is likely that _that _was the reason behind her busy mind.

Her idea was one of the most ingenious ones to try and destroy their new founded enemies. Without noticing, her mind wandered into the past, some would say that it is a difficult journey, however thanks to her perfect memory, it was an easy chore. Well, as easy as you can review a nice amount of milennias. It has already been forty thousand years? Or maybe fifty? Who knows, time tends to be weird when you are preserver in a crio pod.

_She walked through the hallway with a determined gait, her mind barely registering the people she passed who bowed their heads in respect._

_Her purpose was one, especially since the communications blackout with her father in the heart of the space station that it was named 'The Fortress' ubicated at the heart of the massive relay network and since the damaged ship managed to slip through the giant dreadnoughts that were destroying everything._

_The ships message was a terrific one. The Imperatrix and the Imperator where dead as well as most of the progeny from the ruling pair. Ashaera was sad, her parents and most of her brothers were dead, all thanks to the coursed dreadnoughts, let the Goddess curse them so they burn in the fires of hell._

_After the alarming news, she had to took control of the colony as the new Imperatrix, mainly because she was the oldest daughter of the royal family and because she couldn't left the system to try and reunite ships ands troops thanks to the invaders who had blocked the relay network._

_As she was thinking about the facts that had forced her to take command, she arrived at the place of the meeting with the remaining important people of the colony._

_When she entered, she noticed that only five people remained. Sighing she moved and seated at a chair, motioning with her hand so they would start the meeting._

_Hours later, only two ideas passed the harsh conditions imposed by the ones in the meeting. The first one, they had to make sure that Ashaera survived the invasion so she could warn the next species and the second one was suggested by Ksad Ishan and involved a large FTL travel to Ilos, the newly founded habitable planet on the new relay that wasn't documented in any form of digital hard drive or database._

_Taking those ideas into consideration, the acting Imperatrix of the line of the Sthrazza agreed with them and two secret projects were started up._

_Two weeks later, after Ksad had left with a large amount of ships – principally involving most of the people of the colony and some of the ships that had escaped from their systems via FTL travel before they were swarmed with genocidic ships – her project was finished._

_She went to the main room, and carefully selected some of the relics of her bloodline as well as things that had some meaning to her. After she had packed everything, she ordered the few people remaining that they had to leave the colony before the dreadnoughts – In the two weeks they had started calling them Reapers – arrived. She prayed that some colonies had taken some measures so they could warn the next generation like her or Ksad. If not everything would be pointless._

_Entering the cave, she turned and gazed at the great city she was leaving behind. The great skyscrapers, the palace, the residential area. A tear trailed her cheek, going smoothly through the trip that was her face in that moment, until it landed on the floor. She regretted what she had to do but it was necesary._

_The place that was around her from the time of her birth, she had been the first one of the royal family to be born on a word outside of _Tak'La'd _and she was proud of it. Seeing the place now, brought so many memories to her mind, the games she had played with her brothers and sisters, the garden where she had first kissed her first lover, that little sweet thing that had agreed simply because they were both curious about their sexuality, the place where she had buried one of her brothers. Every single memory she had from the city was trying to change her mind towards her plan. It was a pity that none of them could._

_Offering a quick prayer to the Goddess, she finally took enough courage and walked to the place that would have her body for at least thirty to forty thousand of years, maybe more, who knows. Maybe the Reapers would discover the place and she would die in less than a month._

_Placing the great amount of things she had brought, took its time. Time that was well spent by the reamining protheans to fled from the planet that would be a death trap to anyone that would enter. The hearts of the people leaving the place cried when they thought of their beloved Imperatrix, that had to remain behind so she could warn someone in the future and destroy the Reapers._

_Sighing, she told her body that it was time. Activating the systems so she would remain hidden, she started walking through the cave, going into the medbay and finally into the crio pod._

_Upon entering, she started feeling how her body was becoming unresponsive because of the cold and closed her eyes, surrendering to the technology that would keep her alive._

_As she closed her eyes, her mind inmediately felt the pressence of one of the most ingenious creations of her people. A machine that let her know, see and hear everything that happened on the system._

_With this machine she could see how the Reapers entered the system and swarmed the planet like angry _Taneely. _She watched as they deployed some kind of land troops and how they were going into the trap. She felt a tear slip of her eyes as the entire city exploded with a carefully controled explosion killing every single minion the reapers had landed, and how one of the dreadnoughts cought in the range of the explosion suffered a core explosion._

_She noticed how the other Reapers seemed to be perturbed by the dead of their fellow genocidal machine and how they started collecting every single bit of them so they could – in her opinion – create another one._

_As the machines left the system she felt relieved that they didn't find her hiding place and relaxed, entering a meditation trance so she didn't feel the passage of time._

_In the trance she saw how the remains from the beautiful city degrade slowly. The nature was slowly recovering from the trauma it suffered from the dreadnoughts. Ashaera watched happily how small colonies of animals where living in the place where some of the skeletons from her city where remaining._

_Days, Months, Years, Decades, Centurys, Millenias, everything started feeling the same, she losted every sense of time after a while. The only thing that kept her sane was the comings and goings from local wildlife._

_After a lot of time, the first sign of space travel raised an alarm on her mind, it couldn't be the Reapers... Right? If they were already here then her mission had somehow failed. _

_The panic she felt in the back of her mind receded as she started noticing that the ship was too small for a Reaper. Focusing all of her attention, she managed to order the VI to hack into the comunications._

_Saying that she was surprised would be the understanding of the century, millenia, whatever. The VI show her not only a sapient specie but two. Two. Watching them interact in the small ship – She was sure that it was a recon ship – she couldn't stop the thoughts about their allies the Eternal Singers and the Axhanis. The protheans took almost ten thousand years to found another sapient specie. She wondered how much do it take either the female looking ones or the insectlike. Who knows what specie found the other first._

_She marvelled in the physical appearance of the newly founded alliens. The female looking ones where either a matriarchal race because she didn't see any male, or they where asexual. They had some kind of crest and their skin was of shades of blue or purple. The insectlike ones, had two things that looked like horns, bulging eyes and she noticed only a few females of them, and none of the females seemed like warriors. Their skin was of shades of green, yellow or brown._

_After some days of observing the crew, she was starting to get a grasp of the languages. It wasn't easy and she found that mostly she was wrong. She had noticed that they had a native language and some kind of a universal one. Other things she observed was thar the female specie – Asari she chided herself mentally – had the same ability of her people that allows them to meld the nervous systems either to get more pleasure with your mate or to exchange information. The insectlike – Salarian – had a very increased metabolism that allowed them to think and speed with such speep that it was very difficult to try to understand anything about them. _

_She also noticed that the Asari seemed to be natural biotics or at least every single one of the crew was a biotic._

_The ship continued checking the system and after some days – or was it weeks? - it left, leaving Ashaera behind with her thoughts. She was confident that they would find her before another catastrophe happened to them._

_As the years started passing she begun noticing other species. Some that had some avian features, others with four eyes, some that looked like giant lizards and where very aggresive and finally ones that had some kind of hair in their heads, that started a colony in her planet._

_By the time that this happened she had already mastered every single language, except the ones of the ones that where called Humans. Their languages where difficult because they didn't had a universal native language, they seemed to have several of them with a lot that where also 'dead languages' or languages that weren't used anymore._

_She was intrigued by the technology of this era, they weren't so advanced as her people but they had some nice things like their 'omnitools' or something like that, that were attached to their wrists._

_Some years had passed since the colony was constructed, when the first alarm ringed. Turning her attention to the internal cameras she watched who was the intruder._

_She certainly didn't want to be awakened and captured for further study. She had learned what happened to the krogans after their help with a certain 'rachni war' and what happened with the quarians. She wasn't happy._

_In her times that things wouldn't have happened, in fact that things would have been condemned as genocide._

_She focused on the humanoid that was entering her resting place or as she had jokingly named it her 'tomb'._

_She was hooded and had five weapons on her. Two pistols, some kind of sniper rifle – probably customized – and two large knives. She was curious about the last ones, because if they were in a era of gunfight why would she had any use for them? Maybe they had some kind of meaning like her whip?_

_The intruder was female, but she didn't know of what specie. After some time of changing the cameras direction, she managed to see that the female – who was admiring some of the weapons she had stashed – had tanned skin, so she was a human._

_After some time the human had finally passed the last security node that stated that she wasn't a slave of the reapers and was watching stunned the console that was displaying her life signs. The hidden microphones managed to catch the phrase "It can't be..." Before the order was given to the console to start the precess of reviving her body. Seeing that she withdraw herself from her meditative trance and braced herself to the new world._

Ashaera felt her body becoming responsive. Minutes later she felt how the door that isolated her of the real word opened, causing her weak body to stumble out and collapse into her hands and knees as she focused on breathing in, and out. In. Out. In. Out. Each breath carrying a painful twinge thanks to the blessing of a nice amount of thousand years having some holidays in a very comfy crio pod.

Her eyelids were heavy, just like it would feel if she had two five kilogram boulders on top of each. Her arms and knees managed to support her weight, but only barely. At the same time she noticed that her body was very thin, probably thanks to the lack of food consumption. The IV integrated in the pod surely could mantain her alive but it also makes a number on the body.

She steadied her breath and prepared herself mentally for the agony that would assault her next. After an intake of breath she commanded every single nodule of her body so she could achieve a biotic corona. It was conforting to see that her stunt with the pod didn't affect her nodes, however the downside was certainly the _huge amount of fucking pain._

Her throat, that was as dry as a dessert in lunchtime, managed to emit a little noise that seemed like a mix of a shout and a grunt. If her throat would have functioned correctly, the noise that would have been heard was a ear-splitting cry of pain.

Ashaera almost blacked out. She certainly didn't except _that _amount of pain. Sure some pain because of the inactivity of her body. But surely it wouldn't feel like an imploding singularity in every single cell of her body.

She remained still for some seconds until she remembered the outsider that was probably watching her in a lot of surprise, just because you certainly don't expect a living prothean to blurt of some kind of med bay.

Her eyes opened, allowing her to see through a very blurred sight. She blinked a couple of time, clearing her eyes a bit on rach blink. She gave a quick appreciative message to the Godess thanking that her eyes weren't two blocks of ice. That would have been... Painful.

She gazed the room, locating quickly the locked where she had stashed her family armour and her four weapons. Her sniper rifle, her two pistols and her trusty whip. A whip that was made with very specific instructions. It was all thans of a very skilled blacksmith loyal to her family that had discovered the way of blending the complex mix used for hull-plating and some eezo so it would go through a barrier of an enemy. The whip had a... what was the name for the units of lenght of the humans? Ah yes, it had a lenght of almost ten foot and a handle covered on a fine black leather.

As Ashaera was thinking all of that, she noticed that the door chimed before opening. The female that was in the control room of the med bay entered the place looking curiously. She couldn't discern most of the face of the human, the only thing that was visible were her pouty lips.

_Tasty _the prothean thought _I wouldn't mind eating them like a snack, too bad that this is not the place nor the time for this._

Looking for some seconds in her mind for the right words, she finally managed to say as politely as someone who seemed to have little pieces of glass in her throat in perfect galactic "Greetings human, it is a pleasure to meet you."

The human looked a bit surprised, and Ashaera decided that it was time to finish her and continue her hunt of the Reapers. Summoning biotic energy into her hand she reached mentally for her deadly whip and pulled it in a perfect trajectory that would leave it in her right hand.

She was shell-shocked as white and black energy formed around the intruder and stopped the whip in its tracks, sending it instead to the wall adjacent to the pod. As Ashaera was trying to understand how in the Godess name the _human _could emulate the powers of the shadow and pure biotics the female spoke in perfect fluent prothean, shocking her even more. "_You know my lady, it is not very polite to try to decapitate one fellow odd being in the galaxy, especially one that shares a lot with you." _She removed her hood as the last sentence was leaving her lips.

The sight that showed to the shocked eyes of the last Imperatrix of the protheans was even more confusing than the hearing of her native tongue spoken so fluently or the use of the legendary biotics. Silver colored hair bringed out the beautiful unique patern of a pair of prothean eyes, showing how her eyes went from the shade of blue only founded in some parts in the deep ocean and the lightest shade showed the unmistakable colour of the sky of her homeworld.

She was so shocked that she didn't try to translate to a known language for most people "_But... You... How?" _She babbled incoherently

The hum- _hybrid's _lips quirked up just a little, conveying her amusement. "_It's a wonder what scientists can do, right? Like preserving someone for fifty thousand years or passing their genetic memories to a host thanks to a reaction of some unique chemicals and some electricity. Fifteen people shared their genetic memories with me, altering my body so it could be a human body with prothean enchantements."_

Her eyes were wide with shock, Ashaera didn't remember being so surprised in her life. Her body was slowly regaining its functions, allowing her to move a little without any pain. "_You don't mind if I start moving so my body can recover?"_

The woman on front of her merely smiled "_Sure"_

With a last intake of breath, she slowly started lifting her body off the floor. The pain wasn't sharp, but it was there regardless. As she was slowly stretching so she could start with the program that the scientists designed for her so she could regain full control of her body without ill effects, something that the tanned woman on front of her said finally registered on her mind, almost managing to make her fall on the floor. "_You said fifty thousand years" _Ashaera realized with wide eyes "_Then, that __means that..."_

"_Yes" _The strange woman on front of her said, face serious_ "The Sentry had awakened seventeen years ago."_

"_WHAT? Then we are being invaded?" _Ashaera panicked voice was so strong that some echo was heard on the small chamber.

"_No, at least not yet. I already have plans on march, however The Sentry has managed to acquire a small part of the geth."_

"_Damn, that's not good." _Ashaera muttered. _Wait a second... She said that only a small part of the geth are with The Sentry. _"_How do you know that only a small part of the geth are with him?" _Suspicion colored her musical voice.

"_What do you think I had been doing this last three years? Sitting while twirling my thumbs on my ass? The rest of the geth are with me, I already started creating an armada."_

Certainly it wasn't a normal day. The surprises keep accumulating. "_But how do you know that they won't betray you, like the idiots on this... Council?"_

"_Because one platform, saved my father seventeen years ago and has helped him since then. That platform then camed under my control when some idiots killed my father three years ago. The platfomr camed along with some interesting gifts from my father, like for example the shots that made me what I am today and a prothean biotic amp."_

"_Hmmm, yes I can see why you are confident about them." _Ashaera was surprised with all this information, it certainly wasn't something easy to take in. She review the current plans she had on her head. Maybe if she stick with the misterious hybrid they could kill the Reapers.

"_Do you think that you can accept an innocent prothean in you adventures?" _The prothean asked in a sweet innocent voice.

She noticed how that pouty lips that were of the eatable kind slowly spread into a smile. _"I certainly wouldn't mind." _She looked at her with a thoughtful face. "_What do you say, I need someone in my base to control it. And who better than the Imperatrix?"_

She was surprised, being again commanding something? That sounded _very _nice. Now she only needed to see if she could also get the girl and her day would be perfect. Inching closer, she adopted a sultry voice. "_What do you say, I think that we would make quite a ruling pair."_

The silver haired woman just smiled. "_Sorry sweetheart, a very gorgeous asari justicar beated you." _Ashaera could only pout, she just had to try to find another one for a perfect mate that was resourceful, powerful with her biotics, and with humor. She sighed. A pity. "_Too bad that they beat you." _She looked at her and to her mischievously smirk "_I always wanted to taste royal honey._"

Ashaera was stunned. Her silence was accented by the raging blush that was covering her cheeks. Damn that hybrid, she had a very sharp wit. The sound of her laughs however was marvellous, even if it was directed at her blush. She cleared her throat and jumper to anything so they could change the topic "_So, whats your name?"_

"_Nylara Whitewind, also known as the _Blood Raven_." _The wom- Nylara – said proudly.

She cocked a brow _"Blood Raven?"_

"_Yes" _Nylara answered "_In my free time I like to chase idiots like slavers, mercs, gangs, corrupted assholes and things like that, leaving a blood soaked _raven _– that's a Earth bird – feather near the body. It's nice and it also serves to make money."_

"_Good, I always hated that kind of idiots." _Ashaera said with a bloodthirsty smile.

The prothean finished the small program developed by the scientists, she stood straight with a smile and without any part of her body shaking or in pain. Nylara only was there and raised an eyebrow. "_Damn, what a fine piece of meat." _Was his appreciative flirt, causing Ashaero to blush and to start muttering under her breath.

After the blush receded and Raven calmed down – She was laughing madly by how easy Ashaera could blush –, she started going to her locker so she could retrieve her armor.

Opening she once again felt marveled by the excellent piece of craftmanship that was her armor. It covered completely from head to toe, and was bulkier making an enemy think that the armor was of the heavy kind, however it was built in such way and with some materials that allowed her the same amount of speed that she woud normally have if she was with normal clothes.

With a smile, she repeated the motions that she had done at least a millon times during her training and her freelancing missions. She was lucky, not even her parens knew that she was the most skilled scumbag hunter in the entire empire.

When the armor was once again in its rightful place – that it was of course around her body – she started moving a little so she could test what fifty thousands of inactivity could do to a vacuum sealed armor.

After checking her armor – it was as comfortable as it was on her times – and rearming her sniper and dual pistols into working order – Ashaera was marvelled by the heat sink system, her weapons had a different system built in them, allowing her to fire until it was overheated, which resulted on a eight second wait until it was cool again, the only good thing that she saw about her current system was that at least it allowed her infinite ammo – she was ready to go.

Nodding to Nylara, they started going through the med bay. As they were about to leave it, she changed directions to the console that was at the right side of the wall. She looked at it, for some seconds before entering into it and sending a signal through the small network.

As she was leaving the console she spotted the inquisitive expresion of Nylara's face and answered the silent question. "_Mechs so they can transport the art and weapons to a place where we could send it to your ship._"

At this her face brightened "_My ship is by the forest, you have to tell the mechs to go more or less two hundred meters."_

"_Two hundred meters. And in the forest. Wow, what a nice ship."_ Ashaera commented crearly impressed.

"_Yep, it was heavily modificated by the geth. It has top of the line thrusters, shields, hull plating and a modified fighter drive core and a nice amount of guns."_ Nylara said with pride. "_Hey, now __that you mention the weapons, can I take one so I can use it? I liked how it is made and by touching it I noticed that it is of the kind of the ones used on the arena."_

"_Sure, just show me where it is." _

After that they resumed their walk through the cave. As they were entering the room where the weapons were stored, they saw the first mech.

The mechs were larger than what Ashaera remembered. They where almost five – what was that human word... Ah yes – meters tall. They had four arms that they could lift each half of the mechs weight and an advanced VI system that allowed them to comply to orders in the most efficient way.

"_Damn, they look like the YMIR mech."_

"_YMIR?" _Ashaera asked confused.

"_Yeah, they are some tough sons of a bitch."_ Nylara said with a little sour mood as she gazed at the mechs. "_They have a lot of shields and armor, the only way of killing them in one move is sticking a knife to the head which sends a signal to the mech to explode, I barely survived the first one I stabbed on the head."_

"_Damn." _The prothean muttered "_Which was the weapon you were looking?"_

Her companion took some seconds to scan the room before pointing at a place near the entrance _"There"_

They walked until they were on top of the pedestal. She whistled appreciatively as she saw it. It was the one that her brother used in his wild years when he was competing on the arena. _"Yeah, take it- __I think that my brother will be happy on the Goddess house when she notices who is using his trusty knife."_

"_It was from your brother?" _Nylara asked surprised "_I didn't know that royalty could participate on the arena."_

"_Yeah, we can for more or less five to ten years, then they have to abandon they current place, even if they are the champion like my brother. It is very dangerous, I lost two sibling in the arena. But hey, their fault for being stupid."_

This last comment draw a surprised chuckle from the tanned woman at her side.

As she was examining the weapon more closely they heard a muffled explosion and the sound of the colony's alarm.

"_What the-"_ Nylara muttered. _"_Kat, what the hell is happening!_" _She said with her hand on her ear.

Ashaera didn't expect to hear what it was being said, so she almost jumped into the air with suprise when she heard the voice "_Batarians are attacking the colony Raven, it looks like a slaving raid."_

"Shit!" Raven said "Listen to me Kat, there are mechs transporting some items to the ship, open the doors and tell them to put them somewhere, we are going into the colony. After they finish loading everything get into the air and shoot to disable, we don't know how many slaves they already have."

"_Ok Raven, just be careful I have detected a lot of shuttles entering atmosphere."_

"Ok, be careful, I don't want your electronic ass being handed by those idiots."

A chuckle was head from the other side "_Will do... Nyly."_

At this Nylara groaned and muttered "Why for fuck's sake I let her hear _that _video call."

Ashaera smiled at the exchange. "_So an AI, I guess that the Council loves you."_

At this Raven's face brightened and with a chuckle she answered _"Yeah, if somehow they get the tip that my ship has an AI and that I had the geth under my command I think that my future will be a bit dark."_

As the chuckles ended, Nylara turned to me, her face was dead serious without a single bit of the cheerful mood she had showed. _"Can you be with your full helmet all the time and act like a mute? Because I don't want to explain how I founded a living Prothean."_

"_Ok, but you owe me at least a visit to my homeworld."_

"_Sure, I will take you to my house." _At this I almost stumbled and turned to her with wide eyes.

"_Yep, I have a house there, in fact that system is where my base is, since the council never managed to find it I used my genetic memories to go there."_

Ashaera was surprised, not only she was alive but her homeworld was somehow habitable.

Maybe this new universe – for her – wasn't that bad.

_**0o0o0o0o0**_

Two shadows creeped between two buildings. Two shadows that weren't noticed by Vayak N'Takh an ex-SIU operative that was leading a small group of eight slavers through the colony, looking for more slaves. "Okay you idiots, we need more slaves for the ships, if you found a male that _tries _to fight, kill him, any woman bring them back so we can have some fun before giving them to the boss."

This new order was met with cheers. Cheers that signaled their deaths.

Everything happened so fast.

Two batarians where thrown at the walls from the different buildings, which met them with the force of a train, and forcing their bones to make a lot of crunching noises as they shattered. Those two deaths were followed by another of his slavers that suffered a knife through its eye and the one to his left that had a strange whip – that was infused with biotics – completely sever his head.

As Vayak recovered from the surprise of seeing how four of his men died in less than two seconds, he opened his mouth to say the order-

-only to find how his lungs didn't emit any noise. Looking down he could see a blade erupting from his chest, completely cutting the small piece of his body that allowed the air from his lungs travel to his larynx so words could came out.

He fell to the floor with his eyes opened, eyes that allowed him to see in his final moments how a female walked dodging his body to calmly put a round to the head of the two batarians that were closer. The last two died when a blue blur appeared in front of them and they both were catapulted to a waiting singularity, which tore them apart.

Nylara watched the surroundings with a critical eye. It looked exactly how she liked it, enemies obliterated and in a small amount of time.

"_Nice job, I personally liked the singularity waiting for them after your charge." _She said to her companion.

She couldn't see her thanks to the full helmet but she could feel how Ashaera was grinning "_Yeah, I liked your knifes, you throw them with a very wicked precision."_

"_C'mon, lets keep moving. We already have killed idiots for one hour and a half, and frankly I'm getting bored."_

"_Yeah, I admit that looking through the crio pod technology to the batarians I disliked them as soon as I saw their culture. Slaves? That's for brutes." _

"_You and me both." _Raven said.

They keep moving from shadow to shadow. She had to admit it, the woman that was working with her was good blending with the shadows. She could almost bet that Ashaera had done the same a lot of times during her time with the protheans, especially if she had read her bloodthirsty grin correctly.

Nylara let out a small sigh, she had already fighted for an hour and a half and she still had the feeling like she was incomplete. It had to be the mental bond with her lover, she mused. The mental bond with an asari, formed after some meldings with them – the most... intense meldings – and allowed the asari and its partner to share thoughts, emotions or images, much like the so called telepathy. It was very resourceful, since it allowed you to have a double view through the battlefield and at the same time, it makes you feel complete. Now as she was fighting without her mate – the bond don't work if you are too far away, the largest amount of distance they could put between them was almost the entire length of Illium – she felt hollow in the inside. It was like if someone has ripped an important part of her.

She was still brooding a little, when they reached a very conveniently placed house. The good part of it was that it allowed some people to set a killing perimeter in the second flood. This perimetre could easily allow some skilled snipers to target batarians clearly for at least two klicks. The bad part was that the door was open and that there was some noise of struggle in it.

Lifting a finger to her lips, Raven maked a silence gesture to Ashaera, who nodded in assent. Creeping slowly to the door, Nylara peaked a little so she could get a clear view of the inside.

A dead batarian was the first thing that welcomed her. He had suffered a butcher knife through the throat, killing him inmediately. The second thing that catched her eye was two batarians – one holding into the ground a young girl, and the second stripping himself of the armor – clearly trying to enjoy themselves before bringing the new slave to their boss.

"C'mon you moron, hurry up." The one that was pinning down the girl barked to his companion "We have to show this bitch to not kill a batarian."

"Wait a second idiot, the armor doesn't came out alone." The other answered briskly.

Nylara's face darkened at this, and she entered the house, lighting it with the unnatural glow of her biotics.

The one that was pinning the girl only managed to stammer out "Wha-" Before a biotic field lifted him from the floor.

His companion wasn't doing any better. He was also suspended in mid air and thanks that he had shedded the low part of his armor first, he was showing every single part of his body to the angry woman that was holding him on the air.

"Are you ok girl?" She asked to the girl that was struggling to her feet.

"Y-Yes" She managed to choke out "Thanks for your help, if you hadn't camed when you did, I wauld have been... I would..."

"Shh, calm down girl." She cooed at the terrified girl that didn't look like she was older than seventeen. "Whats your name?"

"Isabella Shepard, my friends call me Izzy." She answered as she was checking with her hands her ribs and wincing at it.

"Come here Izzy. Can I call you that right?" She motioned to a place that was at her side.

"Uhh, yeah." As Isabella walked closer to Raven, she noticed a dark bruise under her eye.

"Lift your shirt a bit so I can see your ribs." As she was saying this she noticed with the corner of her eye that Ashaera was entering the house. The completely suited woman noticed the dead batarian, the two lifted biotically and the girl that was lifting her shirt to show how her left side was almost black.

"Ashaera check her ribs and tell me how many they are broken." She received a nod, as her companion moved to Isabella.

Noticing the puzzled gaze of the girl she explained "She is mute, a shot damaged her vocal cords two years ago whe new were on a mission. She managed to save her life, barely, at the cost of her voice."

Isabella understand and as she was nodding she yelped out on suprise as someone touched her ribs. As Ashaera was telling Raven that the girl had two cracked ribs by the amount of fingers that were lifted, the latter noticed that the girl has paled a little.

Breaking her focus of the girl, she turned her eys to the two terrified males that were suspended in mid air. "Ok boys, I will be simple so you can understand me without any inconvenient, ok?"

As she finished saying that, her right hand moved like a blur to her pistol and she let out a shot that went to the genitals of the one that was stripped, making him howl in pain.

The action maked Isabella jump, but after her eyes managed to see what happened, her face broke into a very happy and cruel smirk.

Nylara ignored the whimpering male for now, and she calmly put her pistol in the place on her hip. Bringing her hand up so she could take her knife, she savoured every single moment of the slow unsheathing as the other batarian's eyes widened in terror. Without giving him time for screaming in terror, she threw the knife impaling him between his four eyes, killing him instantly.

"Ashaera do you want the other one?" At her nod, she backed a bit.

The whimpering batarian opened his eyes to the sight of one of the three woman that was unfolding her whip. With one fast motion and snapping sound the whip was around the throat of the unlucky idiot. Giving him only a second so he could realize what would happen to him, the woman yanked her hand, hard, and the small blades on the whip cutted, beheading the male.

Nylara gazed with distate at the last one that died. "And they say that two heads think better than one... The only thing that two heads do is bring a lot more pain to the one that have them." Comment that draw a laugh of the girl that they just saved.

Raven gazed at Isabella, she already looked more calm. "Hey Izzy, do you mind if we use the second floor as a sniper perch, so we can kill more bastards?"

"Not at all." The woman said "In fact if I could remain crouched I would have joined you in the hunt."

At this both Ashaera and Nylara gazed at the girl curiously. "My father is a Major in the Alliance, he went to the spaceport at the first notice of the batarians, my mother is a Captain. You ought to learn something from them, especially if you are enlisting in five months."

"Well, damn I didn't expect that." Nylara said.

"Yeah, too bad that I saw the spaceport explode with a slug from one of the ships. I pray that my father wasn't there, but..." Isabella said with her eyes finding the floor very interesting.

Raven watching that, felt an instant amount of sympathy with the girl. Lifting her chin with one hand she licked eyes – as much as the hood let her lock eyes – and said, "Have faith girl, and if the worst happened remember that he is now with the Goddess and that he sacrificed himself so you could live." The last part coming out with so much sadness that instantly drew the attention of the other two females on the room.

After some seconds, Raven finally let the chin go and started going to the stairs that she had spotted when she was holding the two batarians in the air.

Minutes later, both Nylara and Ashaera had their sniper rifles prepared and they had a large amount of heatsinks at hand, so they could hold the place for a nice amount of time.

"Ok." Nylara said "Let's show this idiots where they need to put their attention."

_**0o0o0o0**_

Evelynn Shepard was worried. More than worried, terrified. Not long ago, the ship from her mother the SSV Einstein had received a distress beacon from Mindoir. The beacon was displayed with a single word, one word that managed to shake down both mother and daughter to the core. Slavers

It wasn't normal than two family members served together on a ship. In fact this only happened because Admiral Hackett told Evelynn her new orders, that were to go to her mother's ship – a carrier – so she could get more experience. Hackett gave that orders, because he had told her that she had 'A lot of potential'.

Only God would have known how much Hackett was right on the future.

Evelynn wasn't the normal type of girl, having just turned twenty one, she was four years older than her sister, wich was currently living in that goddamn colony. Both Evelynn and Isabella lived on Admiral Hackett's ship – Which had their mother as the XO – until Eve was eighteen, moment in which she had enlisted. The next two and a half years were hell. They were stories about people's time on Basic, however nothing could have warned her how difficult it could be.

She had shined on Basic, besting the records from David Anderson, a man that was like an uncle to her thanks to the time that Hackett had both her mother and the condecorated N7 working together. After that, she managed to enter the N7 program. Basic compared to the N7 program, was like brushing her teeth. Since she was very good in what she do, she managed to complete the Adept, Vanguard and Infiltrator program in only two years. Making her the most young N7 in history, and the first one that has finished three different programs.

At that moment her name was very well-known. The woman that completely blew the records from Anderson on Basic? The woman that managed to finished THREE different N7 programs? It wasn't a surprise when after her three months of shore leave which were enjoyed on Mindoir with her sister, Hackett had personally called her and ordered her to report to his ship. But what come as a surprise was when two months later Steven had promoted her mother, Lieutenant Commander – Lt. Cmder. For short – Hannah Shepard to Captain Hannah Shepard. And the surprises continue accumulating when with a smile he had told her that she could chose up to fifteen people for her new post in a carrier, the _SSV Einstein_. He had said ANYONE, so her mother had selected her amongst others like Lieutenant Ernesto Zabaleta so she could complete her new ship.

"You know, if you continue cleaning that sniper rifle, you will make it shine so much that it will hurt your eyes with the sun." A voice said at her back, snapping her of her thoughts.

As she turned to see who talked to her – she had been thinking hard, or as Gunnery Ellison said goldbricking – she noticed her mother leaning agains a bulkhead near station. Not noticing anyone in the surrounding area, she didn't bother to salute her mother.

"Yeah, I know, however I can't stop wandering how Eve and father are doing." She said sighing. His father had retired two years ago, going to Mindoir with Eve, so she could live for a time in a planet, and get used to it for Basic – since she had told them, that it was the worst part of the entire time –.

"C'mon, we are about to enter Mindoir space, lets go to the cockpit." Hannah said as she started walking to the lift, being shadowed almost inmediately by her daughter.

As they reached the CIC, they were both received with respectful salutes from the crewmembers, who thanks to the scuttlebutt knew that the colony had two family members from their Captain and their Gunnery Chief, so they didn't dared to say anything, they just watched both officers with an air of loyalty and awe – since it wasn't common to have someone who had accompanied Admiral Hackett in groundside mission for almost ten years for a Captain and someone who has bested every single record on Basic and who has three different N7 programs finished as a Gunnery Chief –.

As they reached the cockpit, they noticed their pilot – the legendary Jeff 'Joker' Moreau, who was loaned by Hackett for some months – was watching intently the consoles. Joker hear two pairs of boots, and moved his neck a little – and not too fast, since he wasn't keen of visiting Dr. Chakwas for a broken neck, thanks to his Vrolik syndrome – and said respectfully "Ma'am, Chief." Each salute with a nod.

Evelynn noticed that Joker wasn't in his usually sarcastic or cheerful mood, and that his cap with the name 'SSV Einstein' was in his usual place.

"What are you getting Joker?" Her mother asked.

"Ten ships, including a carrier, however the odd thing about them is that they aren't moving an inch." He said obviously confused and concerned.

"That's odd, I want you to continue approaching with weapons ready, if we are attacked we need to hit them in the guns and..."

Hannah was cutted of his command when a signal started beeping on a console.

Seeing Joker's frown Evelynn said "What happened Joker."

"A ship's hailing us." He said obviously confused "The IFF is reading the _Ikran_, what kind of ship is that?"

"Accept the call." Hannah said. At both curious glances, she conceded a little and said "That ship is the one the freelancer called Blood Raven uses, it has helped us sometimes giving us intel about cleared Cerberus bases."

"So she went in, killed everyone and gave the tip to the Alliance? Damn." Joker said while moving his fingers in the aerogel displays. "Hail accepted, we will receive it here."

"This is Captain Shepard from the _SSV Einstein_." Hannah said with all the command of her voice going through the com.

"Greetings Captain, my name's Katarina and currently I'm piloting the _Ikran _I had already disabled the engines and weapons from the ten ships, I didn't strike them down because neither me nor Raven knew if they were already slaves on the ships." The unmistakable voice of an Asari sounded through the com.

Hannah's eyebrows went up at this, as well as the ones of most of the people of the CIC that were listening to this. A single ship that could disable ten ships, including a carrier?

"Excuse me for my skepticism but with one ship you disabled ten?"

"Yes Captain in fact I'm currently at less than three hundred meters on top of you."

A muffled exclamation was heard from Joker as the _Ikran _dropped from stealth. Evelynn's eyes widened when they saw in the tactical map how _close _it was from them the ship.

"Ok, I believe you know." Hannah said obviously concerned.

"Don't worry Captain. May I suggest that you send a team to each ship as well as teams to the surface? Raven and an... associate were holding quite well on ground, before the batarians blew the communications dish."

Hannah pondered on the information for some seconds "Okay thanks Katarina."

"Good luck Captain, I will keep watch for other batarian ships." At this the communication was severed from the other side.

"Joker can you open the intercom?" Hannah said

"Yes Ma'am" Joker said "Intercom ready."

"Everyone Battle stations, we are going to hit this bastards hard on their ships and on the ground. If some of this bastards surrender remember to bump them through the stairs." The Captain said with venom slipping of her voice.

A grin escaped from Evelynn's lips. "Gunnery Chief." Her mother said.

"Yes Ma'am?"

"Locate Lieutenant Zabaleta, and two marines from your choice. We are going in a five man team."

Evelynn grinned savagely with a wicked gleam in her eyes "Aye aye Ma'am."

As they both left to start putting their armors, Joker turned to his current cockpit companion "Y'know, I think I'm almost pitying the batarians. _Almost."_

_**0o0o0o0**_

Evelynn was following her mother allongside with Lieutenant Zabaleta and two marines, that if she wasn't wrong were named Alexander Fuhmar and Esteban Hernandez.

They had already sweeped half of the colony, finding many cages with slaves alongside with a lot of batarians, that were cutted down woth the amount of fire they were receiving.

When they landed near the destroyed spaceport on the shuttle, they were welcomed with a gruesome sight. Lots of dead batarians, and one person who was, when he was still serving the Alliance, Major Kyle Shepard.

Hannah remained there watching the dead body of her husband for some minutes, until she kneeled and gave him a final kiss. Her four companions heard the oath she next pronounced "I swear Kyle, that every single one of them will burn."

And it happened as she had sweared, if a batarian tried to surrender, they were simply putted down by a single bullet to the head of either Hannah or Evelynn Shepard. After the sight that was Kyle Shepard lying in a pool of his blood, both woman entered some kind of savage bloodrage, moving at a punishing pace, and obliterating the batarian slavers that were on ground.

Lieutenant Ernesto Zabaleta, shivered as he saw both, her old friend and her daughter execute some surrendering batarians with a pair of burning eyes – Evelynn's eyes where the ones that would certainly give him nightmares, lilac coloured eyes shining with barely contained rage, giving her and her tanned face an almost unnatural appearance –.

They were currently moving towards the place were their house was standing. Zabaleta wouldn't want to imagine what would happen if both woman entered their house to find Isabella either dead or raped. Their response would be probably genocidal.

Ernesto's eyes were drawn to an alley that was covered in blood. Frowning he said in the radio "Captain, I had founded something."

Seconds later the rest of the squad joined him – He was on point – and each of them stared at the gruesome sight in wonder.

Two batarians were embedded on the wall. Another had one eye completely bloody, with a wound that seemed to be the one of a very sharp knife. One head of a batarian was separated from its body, another batarian – This one with a more expensive armor, probably the leader – had his chest pierced by what seemed to be the same knife or at least its twin, two more had gunshots to the face and a pool of blood surrounded by pieces of batarian where the last pair that composed that squad of nine.

Hernandez horrified by the pool of blood, said in his thick mexican accent "What in God's name happened to those _hijos de puta_?"

The answer was short and managed to plant a seed of fear to the heart of the lieutenant and the two marines "A singularity." Evelynn said "Probably the singularity was there and they were propeled to it by a biotic charge or a biotic throw."

"Let's keep moving" Hannah said. They went through the alley, to a place that was located more or less at one klick from the house.

And the sight that welcomed them, was no less gruesome than the one in the alley. Lots of batarians had their head exploded between the place where they were standing and Shepard's house. Hannah frowned. "Someone seems to be using our house as a sniper perch."

Evelynn who was checking the corpses said with a lot of respect "And whoever is there is one hell of a sniper. Every body has either their eyes or their throats pierced."

"Okay, lets keep moving" Hannah said.

Minutes later, in whick they continue watching bodies on the ground and a lot of building burned their radio sounded _"Captain, we have secured the ten ships. It was a pity but none of the batarians surrendered. We have recovered almost a thousand slaves, it seems that the batarians could send a shipment of people to the ships before the _Ikran _managed to destroy them. They are... in a rough shape."_

"How rough." Hannah asked with barely contained anger.

"_The kind of rough where you need several rape kits." _The marine on the other side sounded like he was just managing to control his stomach.

Zabaleta saw worried how Hannah's eyebrow was twitching in barely contained anger.

"My other daughter is there?" Hannah asked with a voice so cold that it caused Hernandez and Fuhmar to shiver. As they turned their eyes to each other, they glanced at the eyes of the Gunnery Chief and the intense hatred in them, caused them to flinch and avert their eyes.

Evelynn was praying that her sister wasn't there, but if she was there... Not even the Goddess – Evelynn had fascination of the Asari Goddess, and has started praying to her sometimes, when she had very hard times – would save the batarians of her wrath. She vowed that if it was needed she would became a butcher.

"_No Ma'am, I asked through the people and they say that they didn't saw her."_

"Good, carry on." Hannah said losing a bit of the coldness on her tone.

Evelynn gazed at the house, it was very close, her heart went to her throat when she noticed two sniper rifles on the windows of the second floor.

"Captain there are-" Her words were cutted short when in rapid succession four shots were fired. With her eyes filled with terror, she turned thinking that her mother would be on a pile of blood,, but the sight that was on front of her eyes was something very different. As they were all concentrated on the radio, and on the house, four batarians had creeped out until they were almost on the back of the team, however their plans went wrong when the two snipers located them and easily dispatched them.

Evelynn was the first to recover from the shock of the saving snipers, she was very grateful of the pair of saviours, and she wanted to see if her sister was one of them.

The five man squad moved to the house and they entered it, to find one scene that was terrific for both Hannah and Evelynn Shepard. Three dead batarians, one with a butcher's knife on the throat, one beheaded like the one on the alley, however the difference between the one of the alley and this one was that the one on the house had lost both of his heads, the one on the bottom of the body thanks to a shot. Sight that made Zabaleta, Hernandez and Fuhmar wince. The last one had a knife wound through the face.

What if her sister was already raped? They say that rape victims had a very difficult life, Evelynn didn't want that for her sister. Glancing to her left she noticed the horrified eyes on her mother, and she would bet fifty credits that her mother was thinking the same.

However their dark thoughts receded a little when she heard the conversation going on the second floor.

"Hey Izzy how are your ribs?" An unknown voice called, but it filled her of hope, the voice talked to someone that was called Izzy and that could only be her sister.

"Fine, I told you I am right, they are only two ribs it could have been much worse if you hadn't rescued me before that son of a bitch started raping me." The voice of her sister said.

Happiness filled Evelynn, her sister was alive and with only two ribs cracked. No rape, not being a slave. Only two ribs cracked. She would certainly pray to the Goddess her thanks tonight and the rest of the year.

"Let's go upstairs" Her mother said with barely contained excitement.

Evelynn flew upstairs, and moved quickly to hug her sister. Isabella was surprised when she saw a figure in armor run through the stairs and hug her, however she calmed down when she noticed the familiar red heair and figure of her sister.

As Hannah walked upstairs, she couldn't stop the tear of happiness when she saw both of her daughters hugging. She also noticed both figures that were on the window. The woman that was hooded had a big smile on her face as she gazed at the two sisters. Hannah recognized inmediately. It was Raven.

Moving towards the freelancer, she noticed that the second figure, who wore full body armor, was still croched on the window with her sniper on hand.

"Raven long time no see." Hannah said as a greeting.

"Indeed Hannah, it was good to see that I had arrived in time to save your daughter from a possibly very scarring experience." Raven said amicably.

"Yes, I will always thank you for that." Turning to the other woman – she had noticed her 'assets' since no male use that kind of armor – she asked "What's your name?"

She was surprised when the one that answered was Raven instead of the armoured companion. "Her name is Ashaera, she's mute thanks to sharpnel and don't be offended if she doesn't take her helmet, but the sharpnel maked a number with her face and she doesn't like to show it much."

Hannah was shocked "Sharpnel to the face? Damn, what a lucky girl."

"Yeah, well Hannah, since you are here maybe we can talk for a bit, until your teams can clear the city? Oh, by the way, congratulations for your promotion."

"Thanks" Hannah replied smilling "And thank you too Ashaera, for saving my girl."

She received a nod from the figure.

The three of them remained in silence, until the animated tale of Izzy about her rescue reached them, it was in that moment were Hannah smiled again to the hooded figure.

_**0o0o0o0**_

Both were already on the ship, they had spent three more hours talking with Hannah and Evelynn Shepard while Zabaleta and two marines were guarding the door.

They were both sitting on the mess hall. Nylara was certainly in a bad day. Everything started after they started sniping on the house. A little bit of nausea was starting to bother her, as well as some headache. She was at first a bit worried but it had receded after a while. Now while they were on the ship, it was hitting her badly.

Ashaera noticed that the meals were ready and went to retrieve them, as she was returning to the table she noticed how Nylara's face changed to a green tone and how she went running to the toilet.

Worried she followed her and found her puking at a toilet. So grabbing her hair in a ponytail, she started waiting until she had finished her gruesome display. As her companion washed herface with freezing water, she couldn't help but notice that her eyes had dimmed a bit of their natural shade. Frowning she told her "_C'mon, lets go to the med bay."_

"_Sure." _Was the weak answer.

Ashaera, helped by Katarina, was doing a full body scan. And while she waited to the results, she was seated at the side of the bed in which her newly founded friend was trying to relax, with an arm over her eyes.

"_Dim the lights of the bay in a 70% Kat." _Ashaera commanded

"Of course" The AI answered dimming the lights

"_Thanks" _Raven whispered.

She noticed that the scans had finished and after giving her friend one last glance she went to see the scans. The single sentence that was formed as a result of the scan provoked her eyes to widen "_It can't be"_

_A/N: Muehehe you won't know the entire consequences of THIS cliffhanger until some part after Sovereign._


End file.
